{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_50747/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_50747","id":"gutenberg_50747","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50747","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s notes\n\nThis e-text includes Greek characters, Hebrew characters, uncommon\ndiacritics, and punctuation that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode)\ntext readers: e.g. \u039c\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2, \u05de\u05dc\u05d0\u05db\u05d9\u05d4, \u201cmal\u0115\u2019akhi\u201d. If any of these\ncharacters do not display properly, make sure that your text reader\u2019s\n\u201ccharacter set\u201d or \u201cfile encoding\u201d is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may\nalso need to change the default font.\n\nA small number of obvious typos have been corrected.\n\nThe spelling and punctuation of the book have not been changed.\n\nThe footnotes have been renumbered from 1 to 1,560. Each footnote can\nbe found at the end of the chapter in which it is flagged.\n\nIt is clear from the context that some Hebrew letters are missing from\nSection 2 of Chapter VI of the book. These letters, enclosed in square\nbrackets, have been restored.\n\nAn expression such as A^{B} is used in this text to represent A\nfollowed by B as a superscript. For example, X\u207f could be represented by\nX^{n}. (The only letters that can be used as superscripts in UTF-8 are\nlower-case i and n.)\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n THE EXPOSITOR\u2019S BIBLE\n\n\n EDITED BY THE REV.\n\n W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.\n\n _Editor of \u201cThe Expositor\u201d_\n\n\n THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS\n\n VOL. II.\u2014ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, OBADIAH,\n HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH I.\u2014VIII., \u201cMALACHI,\u201d JOEL,\n \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d IX.\u2014XIV. AND JONAH\n\n BY\n\n GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D.\n\n\n NEW YORK\n A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON\n 51 EAST TENTH STREET\n 1898\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITOR\u2019S BIBLE.\n\n_Crown 8vo, cloth, price $1.50 each vol._\n\n\n FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.\n\n Colossians.\n By A. MACLAREN, D.D.\n\n St. Mark.\n By Very Rev. the Bishop of Derry.\n\n Genesis.\n By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.\n\n 1 Samuel.\n By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.\n\n 2 Samuel.\n By the same Author.\n\n Hebrews.\n By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.\n\n\n SECOND SERIES, 1888-9.\n\n Galatians.\n By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.\n\n The Pastoral Epistles.\n By Rev A. PLUMMER, D.D.\n\n Isaiah I.\u2014XXXIX.\n By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I.\n\n The Book of Revelation.\n By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.\n\n 1 Corinthians\n By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.\n\n The Epistles of St. John.\n By Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh.\n\n\n THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.\n\n Judges and Ruth.\n By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.\n\n Jeremiah.\n By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.\n\n Isaiah XL.\u2014LXVI.\n By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II.\n\n St. Matthew.\n By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.\n\n Exodus.\n By Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.\n\n St. Luke.\n By Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.\n\n\n FOURTH SERIES, 1890-91.\n\n Ecclesiastes.\n By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.\n\n St. James and St. Jude.\n By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.\n\n Proverbs.\n By Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D.\n\n Leviticus.\n By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.\n\n The Gospel of St. John.\n By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.\n\n The Acts of the Apostles.\n By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.\n\n\n FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2.\n\n The Psalms.\n By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.\n\n 1 and 2 Thessalonians.\n By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.\n\n The Book of Job.\n By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.\n\n Ephesians.\n By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.\n\n The Gospel of St. John.\n By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.\n\n The Acts of the Apostles.\n By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.\n\n\n SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3.\n\n 1 Kings.\n By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.\n\n Philippians.\n By Principal RAINY, D.D.\n\n Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.\n By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.\n\n Joshua.\n By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.\n\n The Psalms.\n By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.\n\n The Epistles of St. Peter.\n By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.\n\n\n SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4.\n\n 2 Kings.\n By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.\n\n Romans.\n By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A., D.D.\n\n The Books of Chronicles.\n By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.\n\n 2 Corinthians.\n By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.\n\n Numbers.\n By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.\n\n The Psalms.\n By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.\n\n\n EIGHTH SERIES, 1895-6.\n\n Daniel.\n By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.\n\n The Book of Jeremiah.\n By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.\n\n Deuteronomy.\n By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D.\n\n The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.\n By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.\n\n Ezekiel.\n By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A.\n\n The Book of the Twelve Prophets.\n By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols\n\n\n\n\n THE BOOK\n\n OF\n\n THE TWELVE PROPHETS\n\n COMMONLY CALLED THE MINOR\n\n\n BY\n\n GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D.\n\n PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS\n FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW\n\n\n _IN TWO VOLUMES_\n\n VOL. II.\u2014ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, OBADIAH,\n HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH I.\u2014VIII., \u201cMALACHI,\u201d JOEL,\n \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d IX.\u2014XIV. AND JONAH\n\n _WITH HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS_\n\n\n NEW YORK\n A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON\n 51 EAST TENTH STREET\n 1898\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE\n\n\nThe first volume on the Twelve Prophets dealt with the three who\nbelonged to the Eighth Century: Amos, Hosea and Micah. This second\nvolume includes the other nine books arranged in chronological order:\nZephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk, of the Seventh Century; Obadiah, of the\nExile; Haggai, Zechariah i.\u2014viii., \u201cMalachi\u201d and Joel, of the Persian\nPeriod, 538\u2014331; \u201cZechariah\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. and the Book of Jonah, of the\nGreek Period, which began in 332, the date of Alexander\u2019s Syrian\ncampaign.\n\nThe same plan has been followed as in Volume I. A historical\nintroduction is offered to each period. To each prophet are given,\nfirst a chapter of critical introduction, and then one or more chapters\nof exposition. A complete translation has been furnished, with critical\nand explanatory notes. All questions of date and of text, and nearly\nall of interpretation, have been confined to the introductions and\nthe notes, so that those who consult the volume only for expository\npurposes will find the exposition unencumbered by the discussion of\ntechnical points.\n\nThe necessity of including within one volume so many prophets,\nscattered over more than three centuries, and each of them requiring\na separate introduction, has reduced the space available for the\npractical application of their teaching to modern life. But this is the\nless to be regretted, that the contents of the nine books before us\nare not so applicable to our own day, as we have found their greater\npredecessors to be. On the other hand, however, they form a more varied\nintroduction to Old Testament Criticism, while, by the long range of\ntime which they cover, and the many stages of religion to which they\nbelong, they afford a wider view of the development of prophecy. Let us\nlook for a little at these two points.\n\n1. To Old Testament Criticism these books furnish valuable\nintroduction\u2014some of them, like Obadiah, Joel and \u201cZechariah\u201d ix.\u2014xiv.,\nby the great variety of opinion that has prevailed as to their dates\nor their relation to other prophets with whom they have passages in\ncommon; some, like Zechariah and \u201cMalachi,\u201d by their relation to the\nLaw, in the light of modern theories of the origin of the latter; and\nsome, like Joel and Jonah, by the question whether we are to read them\nas history, or as allegories of history, or as apocalypse. That is to\nsay, these nine books raise, besides the usual questions of genuineness\nand integrity, every other possible problem of Old Testament\nCriticism. It has, therefore, been necessary to make the critical\nintroductions full and detailed. The enormous differences of opinion\nas to the dates of some must start the suspicion of arbitrariness,\nunless there be included in each case a history of the development of\ncriticism, so as to exhibit to the English reader the principles and\nthe evidence of fact upon which that criticism is based. I am convinced\nthat what is chiefly required just now by the devout student of the\nBible is the opportunity to judge for himself how far Old Testament\nCriticism is an adult science; with what amount of reasonableness it\nhas been prosecuted; how gradually its conclusions have been reached,\nhow jealously they have been contested; and how far, amid the many\nvarieties of opinion which must always exist with reference to facts\nso ancient and questions so obscure, there has been progress towards\nagreement upon the leading problems. But, besides the accounts of past\ncriticism given in this volume, the reader will find in each case an\nindependent attempt to arrive at a conclusion. This has not always\nbeen successful. A number of points have been left in doubt; and even\nwhere results have been stated with some degree of positiveness, the\nreader need scarcely be warned (after what was said in the Preface to\nVol. I.) that many of these must necessarily be provisional. But, in\nlooking back from the close of this work upon the discussions which\nit contains, I am more than ever convinced of the extreme probability\nof most of the conclusions. Among these are the following: that the\ncorrect interpretation of Habakkuk is to be found in the direction of\nthe position to which Budde\u2019s ingenious proposal has been carried on\npages 123 ff. with reference to Egypt; that the most of Obadiah is to\nbe dated from the sixth century; that \u201cMalachi\u201d is an anonymous work\nfrom the eve of Ezra\u2019s reforms; that Joel follows \u201cMalachi\u201d; and that\n\u201cZechariah\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. has been rightly assigned by Stade to the early\nyears of the Greek Period. I have ventured to contest Kosters\u2019 theory\nthat there was no return of Jewish exiles under Cyrus, and am the more\ndisposed to believe his strong argument inconclusive, not only upon a\nreview of the reasons I have stated in Chap. XVI., but on this ground\nalso, that many of its chief adherents in this country and Germany have\nso modified it as virtually to give up its main contention. I think,\ntoo, there can be little doubt as to the substantial authenticity of\nZephaniah ii. (except the verses on Moab and Ammon) and iii. 1-13, of\nHabakkuk ii. 5 ff., and of the whole of Haggai; or as to the ungenuine\ncharacter of the lyric piece in Zechariah ii. and the intrusion of\n\u201cMalachi\u201d ii. 11-13_a_. On these and smaller points the reader will\nfind full discussion at the proper places.\n\n[I may here add a word or two upon some of the critical conclusions\nreached in Vol. I., which have been recently contested. The student\nwill find strong grounds offered by Canon Driver in his _Joel and\nAmos_[1] for the authenticity of those passages in Amos which,\nfollowing other critics, I regarded or suspected as not authentic.\nIt makes one diffident in one\u2019s opinions when Canon Driver supports\nProfessors Kuenen and Robertson Smith on the other side. But on a\nsurvey of the case I am unable to feel that even they have removed\nwhat they admit to be \u201cforcible\u201d objections to the authorship by Amos\nof the passages in question. They seem to me to have established not\nmore than a possibility that the passages are authentic; and on the\nwhole I still feel that the probability is in the other direction. If\nI am right, then I think that the date of the apostrophes to Jehovah\u2019s\ncreative power which occur in the Book of Amos, and the reference to\nastral deities in chap. v. 27, may be that which I have suggested\non pages 8 and 9 of this volume. Some critics have charged me with\ninconsistency in denying the authenticity of the epilogue to Amos while\ndefending that of the epilogue to Hosea. The two cases, as my arguments\nproved, are entirely different. Nor do I see any reason to change\nthe conclusions of Vol. I. upon the questions of the authenticity of\nvarious parts of Micah.]\n\nThe text of the nine prophets treated in this volume has presented even\nmore difficulties than that of the three treated in Vol. I. And these\ndifficulties must be my apology for the delay of this volume.\n\n2. But the critical and textual value of our nine books is far exceeded\nby the historical. Each exhibits a development of Hebrew prophecy of\nthe greatest interest. From this point of view, indeed, the volume\nmight be entitled \u201cThe Passing of the Prophet.\u201d For throughout our nine\nbooks we see the spirit and the style of the classic prophecy of Israel\ngradually dissolving into other forms of religious thought and feeling.\nThe clear start from the facts of the prophet\u2019s day, the ancient truths\nabout Jehovah and Israel, and the direct appeal to the conscience of\nthe prophet\u2019s contemporaries, are not always given, or when given\nare mingled, coloured and warped by other religious interests, both\npresent and future, which are even powerful enough to shake the\nethical absolutism of the older prophets. With Nahum and Obadiah the\nethical is entirely missed in the presence of the claims\u2014and we cannot\ndeny that they were natural claims\u2014of the long-suffering nation\u2019s\nhour of revenge upon her heathen tyrants. With Zephaniah prophecy,\nstill austerely ethical, passes under the shadow of apocalypse; and\nthe future is solved, not upon purely historical lines, but by the\nintervention of \u201csupernatural\u201d elements. With Habakkuk the ideals of\nthe older prophets encounter the shock of the facts of experience: we\nhave the prophet as sceptic. Upon the other margin of the Exile, Haggai\nand Zechariah (i.\u2014viii.), although they are as practical as any of\ntheir predecessors, exhibit the influence of the exilic developments\nof ritual, angelology and apocalypse. God appears further off from\nZechariah than from the prophets of the eighth century, and in need\nof mediators, human and superhuman. With Zechariah the priest has\ndisplaced the prophet, and it is very remarkable that no place is\nfound for the latter beside _the two sons of oil_, the political and\npriestly heads of the community, who, according to the Fifth Vision,\nstand in the presence of God and between them feed the religious life\nof Israel. Nearly sixty years later \u201cMalachi\u201d exhibits the working of\nProphecy within the Law, and begins to employ the didactic style of\nthe later Rabbinism. Joel starts, like any older prophet, from the\nfacts of his own day, but these hurry him at once into apocalypse; he\ncalls, as thoroughly as any of his predecessors, to repentance, but\nunder the imminence of the Day of the Lord, with its \u201csupernatural\u201d\nterrors, he mentions no special sin and enforces no single virtue. The\ncivic and personal ethics of the earlier prophets are absent. In the\nGreek Period, the oracles now numbered from the ninth to the fourteenth\nchapters of the Book of Zechariah repeat to aggravation the exulting\nrevenge of Nahum and Obadiah, without the strong style or the hold upon\nhistory which the former exhibits, and show us prophecy still further\nenwrapped in apocalypse. But in the Book of Jonah, though it is parable\nand not history, we see a great recovery and expansion of the best\nelements of prophecy. God\u2019s character and Israel\u2019s true mission to the\nworld are revealed in the spirit of Hosea and of the Seer of the Exile,\nwith much of the tenderness, the insight, the analysis of character and\neven the humour of classic prophecy. These qualities raise the Book of\nJonah, though it is probably the latest of our Twelve, to the highest\nrank among them. No book is more worthy to stand by the side of Isaiah\nxl.\u2014lv.; none is nearer in spirit to the New Testament.\n\nAll this gives unity to the study of prophets so far separate in time,\nand so very distinct in character, from each other. From Zephaniah\nto Jonah, or over a period of three centuries, they illustrate the\ndissolution of Prophecy and its passage into other forms of religion.\n\nThe scholars, to whom every worker in this field is indebted, are named\nthroughout the volume. I regret that Nowack\u2019s recent commentary on the\nMinor Prophets (G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) reached me too late\nfor use (except in footnotes) upon the earlier of the nine prophets.\n\n GEORGE ADAM SMITH.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1897\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. II.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n PREFACE v\n\n CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES _Facing p. 1_ in Volume I\n\n\n _INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF\n THE SEVENTH CENTURY_\n\n CHAP.\n\n I. THE SEVENTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 3\n\n 1. REACTION UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON (695?\u2014639).\n\n 2. THE EARLY YEARS OF JOSIAH (639\u2014625): JEREMIAH\n AND ZEPHANIAH.\n\n 3. THE REST OF THE CENTURY (625\u2014586): THE\n FALL OF NINIVEH; NAHUM AND HABAKKUK.\n\n\n _ZEPHANIAH_\n\n II. THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH 35\n\n III. THE PROPHET AND THE REFORMERS 46\n\n ZEPHANIAH i.\u2014ii. 3.\n\n IV. NINIVE DELENDA 61\n\n ZEPHANIAH ii. 4-15.\n\n V. SO AS BY FIRE 67\n\n ZEPHANIAH iii.\n\n\n _NAHUM_\n\n VI. THE BOOK OF NAHUM 77\n\n 1. THE POSITION OF EL\u1e32\u00d4SH.\n\n 2. THE AUTHENTICITY OF CHAP. i.\n\n 3. THE DATE OF CHAPS. ii. AND iii.\n\n VII. THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD 90\n\n NAHUM i.\n\n VIII. THE SIEGE AND FALL OF NINIVEH 96\n\n NAHUM ii. AND iii.\n\n\n _HABA\u1e32\u1e32U\u1e32_\n\n IX. THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK 115\n\n 1. CHAP. i. 2\u2014ii. 4 (OR 8).\n\n 2. CHAP. ii. 5-20.\n\n 3. CHAP. iii.\n\n X. THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC 129\n\n HABAKKUK i.\u2014ii. 4.\n\n XI. TYRANNY IS SUICIDE 143\n\n HABAKKUK ii. 5-20.\n\n XII. \u201cIN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS\u201d 149\n\n HABAKKUK iii.\n\n\n _OBADIAH_\n\n XIII. THE BOOK OF OBADIAH 163\n\n XIV. EDOM AND ISRAEL 177\n\n OBADIAH 1-21.\n\n\n _INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF\n THE PERSIAN PERIOD_\n (539\u2014331 B.C.)\n\n XV. ISRAEL UNDER THE PERSIANS 187\n\n XVI. FROM THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO THE\n BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE (536\u2014516 B.C.) 198\n\n WITH A DISCUSSION OF PROFESSOR KOSTERS\u2019 THEORY.\n\n\n _HAGGAI_\n\n XVII. THE BOOK OF HAGGAI 225\n\n XVIII. HAGGAI AND THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 234\n\n Haggai i., ii.\n\n 1. THE CALL TO BUILD (CHAP. i.).\n\n 2. COURAGE, ZERUBBABEL! COURAGE, JEHOSHUA AND\n ALL THE PEOPLE! (CHAP. ii. 1-9).\n\n 3. THE POWER OF THE UNCLEAN (CHAP. ii. 10-19).\n\n 4. THE REINVESTMENT OF ISRAEL\u2019S HOPE (CHAP. ii.\n 20-23).\n\n\n _ZECHARIAH_\n (_I.\u2014VIII._)\n\n XIX. THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH (I.\u2014VIII.) 255\n\n XX. ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET 264\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 1-6, ETC.; EZRA v. 1, vi. 14.\n\n XXI. THE VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH 273\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 7\u2014vi.\n\n 1. THE INFLUENCES WHICH MOULDED THE VISIONS.\n\n 2. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE VISIONS.\n\n 3. EXPOSITION OF THE SEVERAL VISIONS:\n\n THE FIRST: THE ANGEL-HORSEMEN (i. 7-17).\n\n THE SECOND: THE FOUR HORNS AND THE FOUR\n SMITHS (i. 18-21 ENG.).\n\n THE THIRD: THE CITY OF PEACE (ii. 1-5 ENG.).\n\n THE FOURTH: THE HIGH PRIEST AND THE SATAN (iii.).\n\n THE FIFTH: THE TEMPLE CANDLESTICK AND THE\n TWO OLIVE-TREES (iv.).\n\n THE SIXTH: THE WINGED VOLUME (v. 1-4).\n\n THE SEVENTH: THE WOMAN IN THE BARREL (v. 5-11).\n\n THE EIGHTH: THE CHARIOTS OF THE FOUR WINDS (vi. 1-8).\n\n THE RESULT OF THE VISIONS (vi. 9-15).\n\n XXII. THE ANGELS OF THE VISIONS 310\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 7\u2014vi. 8.\n\n XXIII. \u201cTHE SEED OF PEACE\u201d 320\n\n ZECHARIAH vii., viii.\n\n\n \u201c_MALACHI_\u201d\n\n XXIV. THE BOOK OF \u201cMALACHI\u201d 331\n\n XXV. FROM ZECHARIAH TO \u201cMALACHI\u201d 341\n\n XXVI. PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW 348\n\n \u201cMALACHI\u201d i.\u2014iv. (ENG.).\n\n 1. GOD\u2019S LOVE FOR ISRAEL AND HATRED OF EDOM (i. 2-5).\n\n 2. \u201cHONOUR THY FATHER\u201d (i. 6-14).\n\n 3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE (ii. 1-9).\n\n 4. THE CRUELTY OF DIVORCE (ii. 10-16).\n\n 5. \u201cWHERE IS THE GOD OF JUDGMENT?\u201d (ii. 17\u2014iii. 5).\n\n 6. REPENTANCE BY TITHES (iii. 6-12).\n\n 7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME (iii. 13\u2014iv. 2 ENG.).\n\n 8. THE RETURN OF ELIJAH (iv. 3-5 ENG.).\n\n\n _JOEL_\n\n XXVII. THE BOOK OF JOEL 375\n\n 1. THE DATE OF THE BOOK.\n\n 2. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK.\n\n 3. STATE OF THE TEXT AND THE STYLE OF THE BOOK.\n\n XXVIII. THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD 398\n\n JOEL i.\u2014ii. 17.\n\n XXIX. PROSPERITY AND THE SPIRIT 418\n\n JOEL ii. 18-32 (ENG.).\n\n 1. THE RETURN OF PROSPERITY (ii. 19-27).\n\n 2. THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT (ii. 28-32).\n\n XXX. THE JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN 431\n\n JOEL iii. (ENG.).\n\n\n _INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF\n THE GRECIAN PERIOD_\n (FROM 331 ONWARDS)\n\n XXXI. ISRAEL AND THE GREEKS 439\n\n\n \u201c_ZECHARIAH_\u201d\n (_IX.\u2014XIV._)\n\n XXXII. \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d IX.\u2014XIV. 449\n\n XXXIII. THE CONTENTS OF \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d IX.\u2014XIV. 463\n\n 1. THE COMING OF THE GREEKS (ix. 1-8).\n\n 2. THE PRINCE OF PEACE (ix. 9-12).\n\n 3. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE GREEKS (ix. 13-17).\n\n 4. AGAINST THE TERAPHIM AND SORCERERS (x. 1, 2).\n\n 5. AGAINST EVIL SHEPHERDS (x. 3-12).\n\n 6. WAR UPON THE SYRIAN TYRANTS (xi. 1-3).\n\n 7. THE REJECTION AND MURDER OF THE GOOD\n SHEPHERD (xi. 4-17, xiii. 7-9).\n\n 8. JUDAH _versus_ JERUSALEM (xii. 1-7).\n\n 9. FOUR RESULTS OF JERUSALEM\u2019S DELIVERANCE\n (xii. 8\u2014xiii. 6).\n\n 10. JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN AND SANCTIFICATION\n OF JERUSALEM (xiv.).\n\n\n _JONAH_\n\n XXXIV. THE BOOK OF JONAH 493\n\n 1. THE DATE OF THE BOOK.\n\n 2. THE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.\n\n 3. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.\n\n 4. OUR LORD\u2019S USE OF THE BOOK.\n\n 5. THE UNITY OF THE BOOK.\n\n XXXV. THE GREAT REFUSAL 514\n\n JONAH i.\n\n XXXVI. THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS\u2014THE PSALM 523\n\n JONAH ii.\n\n XXXVII. THE REPENTANCE OF THE CITY 529\n\n JONAH iii.\n\n XXXVIII. ISRAEL\u2019S JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH 536\n\n JONAH iv.\n\n INDEX OF PROPHETS 543\n\n\n\n\n _INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY_\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n\n _THE SEVENTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST_\n\n\nThe three prophets who were treated in the first volume of this work\nbelonged to the eighth century before Christ: if Micah lived into the\nseventh his labours were over by 675. The next group of our twelve,\nalso three in number, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk, did not appear\ntill after 630. To make our study continuous[2] we must now sketch the\ncourse of Israel\u2019s history between.\n\nIn another volume of this series,[3] some account was given of the\nreligious progress of Israel from Isaiah and the Deliverance of\nJerusalem in 701 to Jeremiah and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587. Isaiah\u2019s\nstrength was bent upon establishing the inviolableness of Zion. Zion,\nhe said, should not be taken, and the people, though cut to their\nroots, should remain planted in their own land, the stock of a noble\nnation in the latter days. But Jeremiah predicted the ruin both of City\nand Temple, summoned Jerusalem\u2019s enemies against her in the name of\nJehovah, and counselled his people to submit to them. This reversal\nof the prophetic ideal had a twofold reason. In the first place the\nmoral condition of Israel was worse in 600 B.C. than it had been in\n700; another century had shown how much the nation needed the penalty\nand purgation of exile. But secondly, however the inviolableness of\nJerusalem had been required in the interests of pure religion in 701,\nreligion had now to show that it was independent even of Zion and of\nIsrael\u2019s political survival. Our three prophets of the eighth century\n(as well as Isaiah himself) had indeed preached a gospel which implied\nthis, but it was reserved to Jeremiah to prove that the existence of\nstate and temple was not indispensable to faith in God, and to explain\nthe ruin of Jerusalem, not merely as a well-merited penance, but as\nthe condition of a more spiritual intercourse between Jehovah and His\npeople.\n\nIt is our duty to trace the course of events through the seventh\ncentury, which led to this change of the standpoint of prophecy, and\nwhich moulded the messages especially of Jeremiah\u2019s contemporaries,\nZephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk. We may divide the century into three\nperiods: _First_, that of the Reaction and Persecution under Manasseh\nand Amon, from 695 or 690 to 639, during which prophecy was silent or\nanonymous; _Second_, that of the Early Years of Josiah, 639 to 625,\nnear the end of which we meet with the young Jeremiah and Zephaniah;\n_Third_, the Rest of the Century, 625 to 600, covering the Decline and\nFall of Niniveh, and the prophets Nahum and Habakkuk, with an addition\ncarrying on the history to the Fall of Jerusalem in 587\u20146.\n\n\n 1. REACTION UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON (695?\u2014639).\n\nJerusalem was delivered in 701, and the Assyrians kept away from\nPalestine for twenty-three years.[4]\n\nJudah had peace, and Hezekiah was free to devote his latter days\nto the work of purifying the worship of his people. What he exactly\nachieved is uncertain. The historian imputes to him the removal of the\nhigh places, the destruction of all Ma\u00e7\u00e7eboth and Asheras, and of the\nbrazen serpent.[5] That his measures were drastic is probable from\nthe opinions of Isaiah, who was their inspiration, and proved by the\nreaction which they provoked when Hezekiah died. The _removal_ of the\nhigh places and the concentration of the national worship within the\nTemple would be the more easy that the provincial sanctuaries had been\ndevastated by the Assyrian invasion, and that the shrine of Jehovah was\nglorified by the raising of the siege of 701.\n\nWhile the first of Isaiah\u2019s great postulates for the future, the\ninviolableness of Zion, had been fulfilled, the second, the reign of a\nrighteous prince in Israel, seemed doomed to disappointment. Hezekiah\ndied early in the seventh century,[6] and was succeeded by his son\nManasseh, a boy of twelve, who appears to have been captured by the\nparty whom his father had opposed. The few years\u2019 peace\u2014peace in\nIsrael was always dangerous to the health of the higher religion\u2014the\ninterests of those who had suffered from the reforms, the inevitable\nreaction which a rigorous puritanism provokes\u2014these swiftly reversed\nthe religious fortunes of Israel. Isaiah\u2019s and Micah\u2019s predictions of\nthe final overthrow of Assyria seemed falsified, when in 681 the more\nvigorous Asarhaddon succeeded Sennacherib, and in 678 swept the long\nabsent armies back upon Syria.\n\nSidon was destroyed, and twenty-two princes of Palestine immediately\nyielded their tribute to the conqueror. Manasseh was one of them, and\nhis political homage may have brought him, as it brought Ahaz, within\nthe infection of foreign idolatries.[7] Everything, in short, worked\nfor the revival of that eclectic paganism which Hezekiah had striven to\nstamp out. The high places were rebuilt; altars were erected to Baal,\nwith the sacred pole of Asherah, as in the time of Ahab;[8] shrines to\nthe _host of heaven_ defiled the courts of Jehovah\u2019s house; there was a\nrecrudescence of soothsaying, divination and traffic with the dead.\n\nBut it was all very different from the secure and sunny temper which\nAmos had encountered in Northern Israel.[9] The terrible Assyrian\ninvasions had come between. Life could never again feel so stable.\nStill more destructive had been the social poisons which our prophets\ndescribed as sapping the constitution of Israel for nearly three\ngenerations. The rural simplicity was corrupted by those economic\nchanges which Micah bewails. With the ousting of the old families from\nthe soil, a thousand traditions, memories and habits must have been\nbroken, which had preserved the people\u2019s presence of mind in days of\nsudden disaster, and had carried them, for instance, through so long\na trial as the Syrian wars. Nor could the blood of Israel have run so\npure after the luxury and licentiousness described by Hosea and Isaiah.\nThe novel obligations of commerce, the greed to be rich, the increasing\ndistress among the poor, had strained the joyous temper of that nation\nof peasants\u2019 sons, whom we met with Amos, and shattered the nerves of\ntheir rulers. There is no word of fighting in Manasseh\u2019s days, no word\nof revolt against the tyrant. Perhaps also the intervening puritanism,\nwhich had failed to give the people a permanent faith, had at least\nawakened within them a new conscience.\n\nAt all events there is now no more _ease in Zion_, but a restless fear,\ndriving the people to excesses of religious zeal. We do not read of the\nhappy country festivals of the previous century, nor of the careless\npride of that sudden wealth which built vast palaces and loaded the\naltar of Jehovah with hecatombs. The full-blooded patriotism, which at\nleast kept ritual in touch with clean national issues, has vanished.\nThe popular religion is sullen and exasperated. It takes the form of\nsacrifices of frenzied cruelty and lust. Children are passed through\nthe fire to Moloch, and the Temple is defiled by the orgies of those\nwho abuse their bodies to propitiate a foreign and a brutal god.[10]\n\nBut the most certain consequence of a religion whose nerves are on\nedge is persecution, and this raged all the earlier years of Manasseh.\nThe adherents of the purer faith were slaughtered, and Jerusalem\ndrenched[11] with innocent blood. Her _own sword_, says Jeremiah,\n_devoured the prophets like a destroying lion_.[12]\n\nIt is significant that all that has come down to us from this\n\u201ckilling time\u201d is anonymous;[13] we do not meet with our next group\nof public prophets till Manasseh and his like-minded son have passed\naway. Yet prophecy was not wholly stifled. Voices were raised to\npredict the exile and destruction of the nation. _Jehovah spake by\nHis servants_;[14] while others wove into the prophecies of an Amos,\na Hosea or an Isaiah some application of the old principles to the\nnew circumstances. It is probable, for instance, that the extremely\ndoubtful passage in the Book of Amos, v. 26 f., which imputes to\nIsrael as a whole the worship of astral deities from Assyria, is to be\nassigned to the reign of Manasseh. In its present position it looks\nvery like an intrusion: nowhere else does Amos charge his generation\nwith serving foreign gods; and certainly in all the history of Israel\nwe could not find a more suitable period for so specific a charge\nthan the days when into the central sanctuary of the national worship\nimages were introduced of the host of heaven, and the nation was, in\nconsequence, threatened with exile.[15]\n\nIn times of persecution the documents of the suffering faith have\never been reverenced and guarded with especial zeal. It is not\nimprobable that the prophets, driven from public life, gave themselves\nto the arrangement of the national scriptures; and some critics date\nfrom Manasseh\u2019s reign the weaving of the two earliest documents of\nthe Pentateuch into one continuous book of history.[16] The Book of\nDeuteronomy forms a problem by itself. The legislation which composes\nthe bulk of it[17] appears to have been found among the Temple archives\nat the end of our period, and presented to Josiah as an old and\nforgotten work.[18] There is no reason to charge with fraud those who\nmade the presentation by affirming that they really invented the book.\nThey were priests of Jerusalem, but the book is written by members of\nthe prophetic party, and ostensibly in the interests of the priests\nof the country. It betrays no tremor of the awful persecutions of\nManasseh\u2019s reign; it does not hint at the distinction, then for the\nfirst time apparent, between a false and a true Israel. But it does\ndraw another distinction, familiar to the eighth century, between the\ntrue and the false prophets. The political and spiritual premisses of\nthe doctrine of the book were all present by the end of the reign of\nHezekiah, and it is extremely improbable that his reforms, which were\nin the main those of Deuteronomy, were not accompanied by some code, or\nby some appeal to the fountain of all law in Israel.\n\nBut whether the Book of Deuteronomy now existed or not, there were\nthose in the nation who through all the dark days between Hezekiah and\nJosiah laid up its truth in their hearts and were ready to assist the\nlatter monarch in his public enforcement of it.\n\nWhile these things happened within Judah, very great events were taking\nplace beyond her borders. Asarhaddon of Assyria (681\u2014668) was a monarch\nof long purposes and thorough plans. Before he invaded Egypt, he spent\na year (675) in subduing the restless tribes of Northern Arabia, and\nanother (674) in conquering the peninsula of Sinai, an ancient appanage\nof Egypt. Tyre upon her island baffled his assaults, but the rest of\nPalestine remained subject to him. He received his reward in carrying\nthe Assyrian arms farther into Egypt than any of his predecessors,\nand about 670 took Memphis from the Ethiopian Pharaoh Taharka. Then\nhe died. Assurbanipal, who succeeded, lost Egypt for a few years, but\nabout 665, with the help of his tributaries in Palestine, he overthrew\nTaharka, took Thebes, and established along the Nile a series of vassal\nstates. He quelled a revolt there in 663 and overthrew Memphis for a\nsecond time. The fall of the Egyptian capital resounds through the\nrest of the century; we shall hear its echoes in Nahum. Tyre fell at\nlast with Arvad in 662. But the Assyrian empire had grown too vast for\nhuman hands to grasp, and in 652 a general revolt took place in Egypt,\nArabia, Palestine, Elam, Babylon and Asia Minor. In 649 Assurbanipal\nreduced Elam and Babylon; and by two further campaigns (647 and 645)\nHauran, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Nabatea and all the northern Arabs. On his\nreturn from these he crossed Western Palestine to the sea and punished\nUsu and Akko. It is very remarkable that, while Assurbanipal, who thus\nfought the neighbours of Judah, makes no mention of her, nor numbers\nManasseh among the rebels whom he chastised, the Book of Chronicles\nshould contain the statement that _Jehovah sent upon Manasseh the\ncaptains of the host of the king of Assyria, who bound him with fetters\nand carried him to Babylon_.[19] What grounds the Chronicler had for\nsuch a statement are quite unknown to us. He introduces Manasseh\u2019s\ncaptivity as the consequence of idolatry, and asserts that on his\nrestoration Manasseh abolished in Judah all worship save that of\nJehovah, but if this happened (and the Book of Kings has no trace\nof it) it was without result. Amon, son of Manasseh, continued to\nsacrifice to all the images which his father had introduced.\n\n\n 2. THE EARLY YEARS OF JOSIAH (639\u2014625):\n JEREMIAH AND ZEPHANIAH.\n\nAmon had not reigned for two years when _his servants conspired against\nhim, and he was slain in his own house_.[20] But the _people of the\nland_ rose against the court, slew the conspirators, and secured the\nthrone for Amon\u2019s son, Josiah, a child of eight. It is difficult to\nknow what we ought to understand by these movements. Amon, who was\nslain, was an idolater; the popular party, who slew his slayers,\nput his son on the throne, and that son, unlike both his father and\ngrandfather, bore a name compounded with the name of Jehovah. Was Amon\nthen slain for personal reasons? Did the people, in their rising, have\na zeal for Jehovah? Was the crisis purely political, but usurped by\nsome school or party of Jehovah who had been gathering strength through\nthe later years of Manasseh, and waiting for some such unsettlement of\naffairs as now occurred? The meagre records of the Bible give us no\nhelp, and for suggestions towards an answer we must turn to the wider\npolitics of the time.\n\nAssurbanipal\u2019s campaigns of 647 and 645 were the last appearances of\nAssyria in Palestine. He had not attempted to reconquer Egypt,[21]\nand her king, Psamtik I., began to push his arms northward. Progress\nmust have been slow, for the siege of Ashdod, which Psamtik probably\nbegan after 645, is said to have occupied him twenty-nine years.\nStill, he must have made his influence to be felt in Palestine, and\nin all probability there was once more, as in the days of Isaiah, an\nEgyptian party in Jerusalem. As the power of Assyria receded over the\nnorthern horizon, the fascination of her idolatries, which Manasseh had\nestablished in Judah, must have waned. The priests of Jehovah\u2019s house,\njostled by their pagan rivals, would be inclined to make common cause\nwith the prophets under a persecution which both had suffered. With the\nloosening of the Assyrian yoke the national spirit would revive, and\nit is easy to imagine prophets, priests and people working together in\nthe movement which placed the child Josiah on the throne. At his tender\nage, he must have been wholly in the care of the women of the royal\nhouse; and among these the influence of the prophets may have found\nadherents more readily than among the counsellors of an adult prince.\nNot only did the new monarch carry the name of Jehovah in his own;\nthis was the case also with his mother\u2019s father.[22] In the revolt,\ntherefore, which raised this unconscious child to the throne and in\nthe circumstances which moulded his character, we may infer that there\nalready existed the germs of the great work of reform which his manhood\nachieved.\n\nFor some time little change would be possible, but from the first facts\nwere working for great issues. The Book of Kings, which places the\ndestruction of the idols after the discovery of the law-book in the\neighteenth year of Josiah\u2019s reign, records a previous cleansing and\nrestoration of the house of Jehovah.[23] This points to the growing\nascendency of the prophetic party during the first fifteen years of\nJosiah\u2019s reign. Of the first ten years we know nothing, except that the\nprestige of Assyria was waning; but this fact, along with the preaching\nof the prophets, who had neither a native tyrant nor the exigencies of\na foreign alliance to silence them, must have weaned the people from\nthe worship of the Assyrian idols. Unless these had been discredited,\nthe repair of Jehovah\u2019s house could hardly have been attempted; and\nthat this progressed means that part of Josiah\u2019s destruction of the\nheathen images took place before the discovery of the Book of the Law,\nwhich happened in consequence of the cleansing of the Temple.\n\nBut just as under the good Hezekiah the social condition of the people,\nand especially the behaviour of the upper classes, continued to be bad,\nso it was again in the early years of Josiah. There was a _remnant of\nBaal_[24] in the land. The shrines of _the host of heaven_ might have\nbeen swept from the Temple, but they were still worshipped from the\nhousetops.[25] Men swore by the Queen of Heaven, and by Moloch, the\nKing. Some turned back from Jehovah; some, grown up in idolatry, had\nnot yet sought Him. Idolatry may have been disestablished from the\nnational sanctuary: its practices still lingered (how intelligibly to\nus!) in social and commercial life. Foreign fashions were affected\nby the court and nobility; trade, as always, was combined with the\nacknowledgment of foreign gods.[26] Moreover, the rich were fraudulent\nand cruel. The ministers of justice, and the great in the land, ravened\namong the poor. Jerusalem was full of oppression. These were the same\ndisorders as Amos and Hosea exposed in Northern Israel, and as Micah\nexposed in Jerusalem. But one new trait of evil was added. In the\neighth century, with all their ignorance of Jehovah\u2019s true character,\nmen had yet believed in Him, gloried in His energy, and expected Him\nto act\u2014were it only in accordance with their low ideals. They had been\nalive and bubbling with religion. But now they _had thickened on their\nlees_. They had grown sceptical, dull, indifferent; they said in their\nhearts, _Jehovah will not do good, neither will He do evil_!\n\nNow, just as in the eighth century there had risen, contemporaneous\nwith Israel\u2019s social corruption, a cloud in the north, black and\npregnant with destruction, so was it once more. But the cloud was\nnot Assyria. From the hidden world beyond her, from the regions over\nCaucasus, vast, nameless hordes of men arose, and, sweeping past her\nunchecked, poured upon Palestine. This was the great Scythian invasion\nrecorded by Herodotus.[27] We have almost no other report than his\nfew paragraphs, but we can realise the event from our knowledge of\nthe Mongol and Tartar invasions which in later centuries pursued\nthe same path southwards. Living in the saddle, and (it would seem)\nwith no infantry nor chariots to delay them, these Centaurs swept on\nwith a speed of invasion hitherto unknown. In 630 they had crossed\nthe Caucasus, by 626 they were on the borders of Egypt. Psamtik I.\nsucceeded in purchasing their retreat,[28] and they swept back again\nas swiftly as they came. They must have followed the old Assyrian\nwar-paths of the eighth century, and, without foot-soldiers, had\nprobably kept even more closely to the plains. In Palestine their\nway would lie, like Assyria\u2019s, across Hauran, through the plain of\nEsdraelon, and down the Philistine coast, and in fact it is only on\nthis line that there exists any possible trace of them.[29] But they\nshook the whole of Palestine into consternation. Though Judah among her\nhills escaped them, as she escaped the earlier campaigns of Assyria,\nthey showed her the penal resources of her offended God. Once again the\ndark, sacred North was seen to be full of the possibilities of doom.\n\nBehold, therefore, exactly the two conditions, ethical and political,\nwhich, as we saw, called forth the sudden prophets of the eighth\ncentury, and made them so sure of their message of judgment: on the\none side Judah, her sins calling aloud for punishment; on the other\nside the forces of punishment swiftly drawing on. It was precisely at\nthis juncture that prophecy again arose, and as Amos, Hosea, Micah and\nIsaiah appeared in the end of the eighth century, Zephaniah, Habakkuk,\nNahum and Jeremiah appeared in the end of the seventh. The coincidence\nis exact, and a remarkable confirmation of the truth which we deduced\nfrom the experience of Amos, that the assurance of the prophet in\nIsrael arose from the coincidence of his conscience with his political\nobservation. The justice of Jehovah demands His people\u2019s chastisement,\nbut see\u2014the forces of chastisement are already upon the horizon.\nZephaniah uses the same phrase as Amos: _the Day of Jehovah_, he says,\n_is drawing near_.\n\nWe are now in touch with Zephaniah, the first of our prophets, but,\nbefore listening to him, it will be well to complete our survey of\nthose remaining years of the century in which he and his immediate\nsuccessors laboured.\n\n\n 3. THE REST OF THE CENTURY (625\u2014586): THE\n FALL OF NINIVEH; NAHUM AND HABAKKUK.\n\nAlthough the Scythians had vanished from the horizon of Palestine and\nthe Assyrians came over it no more, the fateful North still lowered\ndark and turbulent. Yet the keen eyes of the watchmen in Palestine\nperceived that, for a time at least, the storm must break where it had\ngathered. It is upon Niniveh, not upon Jerusalem, that the prophetic\npassion of Nahum and Habakkuk is concentrated; the new day of the Lord\nis filled with the fate, not of Israel, but of Assyria.\n\nFor nearly two centuries Niniveh had been the capital and cynosure of\nWestern Asia; for more than one she had set the fashions, the art, and\neven, to some extent, the religion of all the Semitic nations. Of late\nyears, too, she had drawn to herself the world\u2019s trade. Great roads\nfrom Egypt, from Persia and from the \u00c6gean converged upon her, till\nlike Imperial Rome she was filled with a vast motley of peoples, and\nmen went forth from her to the ends of the earth. Under Assurbanipal\ntravel and research had increased, and the city acquired renown as\nthe centre of the world\u2019s wisdom. Thus her size and glory, with all\nher details of rampart and tower, street, palace and temple, grew\neverywhere familiar. But the peoples gazed at her as those who had\nbeen bled to build her. The most remote of them had seen face to face\non their own fields, trampling, stripping, burning, the warriors who\nmanned her walls. She had dashed their little ones against the rocks.\nTheir kings had been dragged from them and hung in cages about her\ngates. Their gods had lined the temples of her gods. Year by year they\nsent her their heavy tribute, and the bearers came back with fresh\ntales of her rapacious insolence. So she stood, bitterly clear to\nall men, in her glory and her cruelty! Their hate haunted her every\npinnacle; and at last, when about 625 the news came that her frontier\nfortresses had fallen and the great city herself was being besieged,\nwe can understand how her victims gloated on each possible stage of\nher fall, and saw her yield to one after another of the cruelties of\nbattle, siege and storm, which for two hundred years she had inflicted\non themselves. To such a vision the prophet Nahum gives voice, not on\nbehalf of Israel alone, but of all the nations whom Niniveh had crushed.\n\nIt was obvious that the vengeance which Western Asia thus hailed upon\nAssyria must come from one or other of two groups of peoples, standing\nrespectively to the north and to the south of her.\n\nTo the north, or north-east, between Mesopotamia and the Caspian, there\nwere gathered a congeries of restless tribes known to the Assyrians as\nthe Madai or Matai, the Medes. They are mentioned first by Shalmaneser\nII. in 840, and few of his successors do not record campaigns against\nthem. The earliest notice of them in the Old Testament is in connection\nwith the captives of Samaria, some of whom in 720 were settled among\nthem.[30] These Medes were probably of Turanian stock, but by the end\nof the eighth century, if we are to judge from the names of some of\ntheir chiefs,[31] their most easterly tribes had already fallen under\nAryan influence, spreading westward from Persia.[32] So led, they\nbecame united and formidable to Assyria. Herodotus relates that their\nKing Phraortes, or Fravartis, actually attempted the siege of Niniveh,\nprobably on the death of Assurbanipal in 625, but was slain.[33]\nHis son Kyaxares, Kastarit or Uvakshathra, was forced by a Scythian\ninvasion of his own country to withdraw his troops from Assyria; but\nhaving either bought off or assimilated the Scythian invaders, he\nreturned in 608, with forces sufficient to overthrow the northern\nAssyrian fortresses and to invest Niniveh herself.\n\nThe other and southern group of peoples which threatened Assyria were\nSemitic. At their head were the Kasdim or Chaldeans.[34] This name\nappears for the first time in the Assyrian annals a little earlier\nthan that of the Medes,[35] and from the middle of the ninth century\nonwards the people designated by it frequently engage the Assyrian\narms. They were, to begin with, a few half-savage tribes to the\nsouth of Babylon, in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf; but they\nproved their vigour by the repeated lordship of all Babylonia and by\ninveterate rebellion against the monarchs of Niniveh. Before the end of\nthe seventh century we find their names used by the prophets for the\nBabylonians as a whole. Assurbanipal, who was a patron of Babylonian\nculture, kept the country quiet during the last years of his reign, but\nhis son Asshur-itil-ilani, upon his accession in 625, had to grant the\nviceroyalty to Nabopolassar the Chaldean with a considerable degree\nof independence. Asshur-itil-ilani was succeeded in a few years[36]\nby Sinsuriskin, the Sarakos of the Greeks, who preserved at least a\nnominal sovereignty over Babylon,[37] but Nabopolassar must already\nhave cherished ambitions of succeeding the Assyrian in the empire of\nthe world. He enjoyed sufficient freedom to organise his forces to that\nend.\n\nThese were the two powers which from north and south watched with\nimpatience the decay of Assyria. That they made no attempt upon her\nbetween 625 and 608 was probably due to several causes: their jealousy\nof each other, the Medes\u2019 trouble with the Scythians, Nabopolassar\u2019s\ngenius for waiting till his forces were ready, and above all the still\nconsiderable vigour of the Assyrian himself. The Lion, though old,[38]\nwas not broken. His power may have relaxed in the distant provinces of\nhis empire, though, if Budde be right about the date of Habakkuk,[39]\nthe peoples of Syria still groaned under the thought of it; but his\nown land\u2014his _lair_, as the prophets call it\u2014was still terrible. It\nis true that, as Nahum perceives, the capital was no longer native\nand patriotic as it had been; the trade fostered by Assurbanipal had\nfilled Niniveh with a vast and mercenary population, ready to break\nand disperse at the first breach in her walls. Yet Assyria proper was\ncovered with fortresses, and the tradition had long fastened upon the\npeoples that Niniveh was impregnable. Hence the tension of those years.\nThe peoples of Western Asia looked eagerly for their revenge; but the\ntwo powers which alone could accomplish this stood waiting\u2014afraid of\neach other perhaps, but more afraid of the object of their common\nambition.\n\nIt is said that Kyaxares and Nabopolassar at last came to an\nagreement;[40] but more probably the crisis was hastened by the\nappearance of another claimant for the coveted spoil. In 608 Pharaoh\nNecho _went up against the king of Assyria towards the river\nEuphrates_.[41] This Egyptian advance may have forced the hand of\nKyaxares, who appears to have begun his investment of Niniveh a little\nafter Necho defeated Josiah at Megiddo.[42] The siege is said to\nhave lasted two years. Whether this included the delays necessary\nfor the reduction of fortresses upon the great roads of approach to\nthe Assyrian capital we do not know; but Niniveh\u2019s own position,\nfortifications and resources may well account for the whole of the\ntime. Colonel Billerbeck, a military expert, has suggested[43] that\nthe Medes found it possible to invest the city only upon the northern\nand eastern sides. Down the west flows the Tigris, and across this the\nbesieged may have been able to bring in supplies and reinforcements\nfrom the fertile country beyond. Herodotus affirms that the Medes\neffected the capture of Niniveh by themselves,[44] and for this some\nrecent evidence has been found,[45] so that another tradition that\nthe Chaldeans were also actively engaged,[46] which has nothing to\nsupport it, may be regarded as false. Nabopolassar may still have been\nin name an Assyrian viceroy; yet, as Colonel Billerbeck points out, he\nhad it in his power to make Kyaxares\u2019 victory possible by holding the\nsouthern roads to Niniveh, detaching other viceroys of her provinces\nand so shutting her up to her own resources. But among other reasons\nwhich kept him away from the siege may have been the necessity of\nguarding against Egyptian designs on the moribund empire. Pharaoh\nNecho, as we know, was making for the Euphrates as early as 608. Now if\nNabopolassar and Kyaxares had arranged to divide Assyria between them,\nthen it is likely that they agreed also to share the work of making\ntheir inheritance sure, so that while Kyaxares overthrew Niniveh,\nNabopolassar, or rather his son Nebuchadrezzar,[47] waited for and\noverthrew Pharaoh by Carchemish on the Euphrates. Consequently Assyria\nwas divided between the Medes and the Chaldeans; the latter as her\nheirs in the south took over her title to Syria and Palestine.\n\nThe two prophets with whom we have to deal at this time are almost\nentirely engrossed with the fall of Assyria. Nahum exults in the\ndestruction of Niniveh; Habakkuk sees in the Chaldeans nothing but the\navengers of the peoples whom Assyria[48] had oppressed. For both these\nevents are the close of an epoch: neither prophet looks beyond this.\nNahum (not on behalf of Israel alone) gives expression to the epoch\u2019s\nlong thirst for vengeance on the tyrant; Habakkuk (if Budde\u2019s reading\nof him be right[49]) states the problems with which its victorious\ncruelties had filled the pious mind\u2014states the problem and beholds the\nsolution in the Chaldeans. And, surely, the vengeance was so just and\nso ample, the solution so drastic and for the time complete, that we\ncan well understand how two prophets should exhaust their office in\ndescribing such things, and feel no motive to look either deep into\nthe moral condition of Israel, or far out into the future which God\nwas preparing for His people. It might, of course, be said that the\nprophets\u2019 silence on the latter subjects was due to their positions\nimmediately after the great Reform of 621, when the nation, having\nbeen roused to an honest striving after righteousness, did not require\nprophetic rebuke, and when the success of so godly a prince as Josiah\nleft no spiritual ambitions unsatisfied. But this (even if the dates\nof the two prophets were certain) is hardly probable; and the other\nexplanation is sufficient. Who can doubt this who has realised the long\nepoch which then reached a crisis, or has been thrilled by the crash of\nthe crisis itself? The fall of Niniveh was deafening enough to drown\nfor the moment, as it does in Nahum, even a Hebrew\u2019s clamant conscience\nof his country\u2019s sin. The problems, which the long success of Assyrian\ncruelty had started, were old and formidable enough to demand statement\nand answer before either the hopes or the responsibilities of the\nfuture could find voice. The past also requires its prophets. Feeling\nhas to be satisfied, and experience balanced, before the heart is\nwilling to turn the leaf and read the page of the future.\n\nYet, through all this time of Assyria\u2019s decline, Israel had her own\nsins, fears and convictions of judgment to come. The disappearance of\nthe Scythians did not leave Zephaniah\u2019s predictions of doom without\nmeans of fulfilment; nor did the great Reform of 621 remove the\nnecessity of that doom. In the deepest hearts the assurance that Israel\nmust be punished was by these things only confirmed. The prophetess\nHuldah, the first to speak in the name of the Lord after the Book of\nthe Law was discovered, emphasised not the reforms which it enjoined\nbut the judgments which it predicted. Josiah\u2019s righteousness could at\nmost ensure for himself a peaceful death: his people were incorrigible\nand doomed.[50] The reforms indeed proceeded, there was public and\nwidespread penitence, idolatry was abolished. But those were only\nshallow pedants who put their trust in the possession of a revealed\nLaw and purged Temple,[51] and who boasted that therefore Israel\nwas secure. Jeremiah repeated the gloomy forecasts of Zephaniah and\nHuldah, and even before the wickedness of Jehoiakim\u2019s reign proved the\nobduracy of Israel\u2019s heart, he affirmed _the imminence of the evil out\nof the north and the great destruction_.[52] Of our three prophets in\nthis period Zephaniah, though the earliest, had therefore the last word.\nWhile Nahum and Habakkuk were almost wholly absorbed with the epoch\nthat is closing, he had a vision of the future. Is this why his book\nhas been ranged among our Twelve after those of his slightly later\ncontemporaries?\n\nThe precise course of events in Israel was this\u2014and we must follow\nthem, for among them we have to seek exact dates for Nahum and\nHabakkuk. In 621 the Book of the Law was discovered, and Josiah applied\nhimself with thoroughness to the reforms which he had already begun.\nFor thirteen years he seems to have had peace to carry them through.\nThe heathen altars were thrown down, with all the high places in Judah\nand even some in Samaria. Images were abolished. The heathen priests\nwere exterminated, with the wizards and soothsayers. The Levites,\nexcept the sons of Zadok, who alone were allowed to minister in the\nTemple, henceforth the only place of sacrifice, were debarred from\npriestly duties. A great passover was celebrated.[53] The king did\njustice and was the friend of the poor;[54] it went well with him\nand the people.[55] He extended his influence into Samaria; it is\nprobable that he ventured to carry out the injunctions of Deuteronomy\nwith regard to the neighbouring heathen.[56] Literature flourished:\nthough critics have not combined upon the works to be assigned to this\nreign, they agree that a great many were produced in it. Wealth must\nhave accumulated: certainly the nation entered the troubles of the\nnext reign with an arrogant confidence that argues under Josiah the\nrapid growth of prosperity in every direction. Then of a sudden came\nthe fatal year of 608. Pharaoh Necho appeared in Palestine[57] with\nan army destined for the Euphrates, and Josiah went up to meet him at\nMegiddo. His tactics are plain\u2014it is the first strait on the land-road\nfrom Egypt to the Euphrates\u2014but his motives are obscure. Assyria can\nhardly have been strong enough at this time to fling him as her vassal\nacross the path of her ancient foe. He must have gone of himself. \u201cHis\ndream was probably to bring back the scattered remains of the northern\nkingdom to a pure worship, and to unite the whole people of Israel\nunder the sceptre of the house of David; and he was not inclined to\nallow Egypt to cross his aspirations, and rob him of the inheritance\nwhich was falling to him from the dead hand of Assyria.\u201d[58]\n\nJosiah fell, and with him not only the liberty of his people, but the\nchief support of their faith. That the righteous king was cut down in\nthe midst of his days and in defence of the Holy Land\u2014what could this\nmean? Was it, then, vain to serve the Lord? Could He not defend His\nown? With some the disaster was a cause of sore complaint, and with\nothers, perhaps, of open desertion from Jehovah.\n\nBut the extraordinary thing is, how little effect Josiah\u2019s death seems\nto have had upon the people\u2019s self-confidence at large, or upon their\nadherence to Jehovah. They immediately placed Josiah\u2019s second son on\nthe throne; but Necho, having got him by some means to his camp at\nRiblah between the Lebanons, sent him in fetters to Egypt, where he\ndied, and established in his place Eliakim, his elder brother. On his\naccession Eliakim changed his name to Jehoiakim, a proof that Jehovah\nwas still regarded as the sufficient patron of Israel; and the same\nblind belief that, for the sake of His Temple and of His Law, Jehovah\nwould keep His people in security, continued to persevere in spite\nof Megiddo. It was a most immoral ease, and filled with injustice.\nNecho subjected the land to a fine. This was not heavy, but Jehoiakim,\ninstead of paying it out of the royal treasures, exacted it from _the\npeople of the land_,[59] and then employed the peace which it purchased\nin erecting a costly palace for himself by the forced labour of his\nsubjects.[60] He was covetous, unjust and violently cruel. Like prince\nlike people: social oppression prevailed, and there was a recrudescence\nof the idolatries of Manasseh\u2019s time,[61] especially (it may be\ninferred) after Necho\u2019s defeat at Carchemish in 605. That all this\nshould exist along with a fanatic trust in Jehovah need not surprise us\nwho remember the very similar state of the public mind in North Israel\nunder Amos and Hosea. Jeremiah attacked it as they had done. Though\nAssyria was fallen, and Egypt was promising protection, Jeremiah\npredicted destruction from the north on Egypt and Israel alike. When\nat last the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish stirred some vague fears\nin the people\u2019s hearts, Jeremiah\u2019s conviction broke out into clear\nflame. For three-and-twenty years he had brought God\u2019s word in vain to\nhis countrymen. Now God Himself would act: Nebuchadrezzar was but His\nservant to lead Israel into captivity.[62]\n\nThe same year, 605 or 604, Jeremiah wrote all these things in a\nvolume;[63] and a few months later, at a national fast, occasioned\nperhaps by the fear of the Chaldeans, Baruch, his secretary, read them\nin the house of the Lord, in the ears of all the people. The king was\ninformed, the roll was brought to him, and as it was read, with his\nown hands he cut it up and burned it, three or four columns at a time.\nJeremiah answered by calling down on Jehoiakim an ignominious death,\nand repeated the doom already uttered on the land. Another prophet,\nUrijah, had recently been executed for the same truth; but Jeremiah and\nBaruch escaped into hiding.\n\nThis was probably in 603, and for a little time Jehoiakim and the\npopulace were restored to their false security by the delay of the\nChaldeans to come south. Nebuchadrezzar was occupied in Babylon,\nsecuring his succession to his father. At last, either in 602 or more\nprobably in 600, he marched into Syria, and Jehoiakim _became his\nservant for three years_.[64] In such a condition the Jewish state\nmight have survived for at least another generation,[65] but in 599 or\n597 Jehoiakim, with the madness of the doomed, held back his tribute.\nThe revolt was probably instigated by Egypt, which, however, did not\ndare to support it. As in Isaiah\u2019s time against Assyria, so now against\nBabylon, Egypt was a blusterer _who blustered and sat still_. She still\n_helped in vain and to no purpose_.[66] Nor could Judah count on the\nhelp of the other states of Palestine. They had joined Hezekiah against\nSennacherib, but remembering perhaps how Manasseh had failed to help\nthem against Assurbanipal, and that Josiah had carried things with a\nhigh hand towards them,[67] they obeyed Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s command and\nraided Judah till he himself should have time to arrive.[68] Amid these\nraids the senseless Jehoiakim seems to have perished,[69] for when\nNebuchadrezzar appeared before Jerusalem in 597, his son Jehoiachin,\na youth of eighteen, had succeeded to the throne. The innocent reaped\nthe harvest sown by the guilty. In the attempt (it would appear)\nto save his people from destruction,[70] Jehoiachin capitulated.\nBut Nebuchadrezzar was not content with the person of the king: he\ndeported to Babylon the court, a large number of influential persons,\n_the mighty men of the land_ or what must have been nearly all the\nfighting men, with the necessary military artificers and swordsmiths.\nPriests also went, Ezekiel among them, and probably representatives\nof other classes not mentioned by the annalist. All these were the\nflower of the nation. Over what was left Nebuchadrezzar placed a son\nof Josiah on the throne who took the name of Zedekiah. Again with\na little common-sense, the state might have survived; but it was a\nshort respite. The new court began intrigues with Egypt, and Zedekiah,\nwith the Ammonites and Tyre, ventured a revolt in 589. Jeremiah and\nEzekiel knew it was in vain. Nebuchadrezzar marched on Jerusalem,\nand though for a time he had to raise the siege in order to defeat a\nforce sent by Pharaoh Hophra, the Chaldean armies closed in again upon\nthe doomed city. Her defence was stubborn; but famine and pestilence\nsapped it, and numbers fell away to the enemy. About the eighteenth\nmonth, the besiegers took the northern suburb and stormed the middle\ngate. Zedekiah and the army broke their lines only to be captured at\nJericho. In a few weeks more the city was taken and given over to fire.\nZedekiah was blinded, and with a large number of his people carried to\nBabylon. It was the end, for although a small community of Jews was\nleft at Mizpeh under a Jewish viceroy and with Jeremiah to guide them,\nthey were soon broken up and fled to Egypt. Judah had perished. Her\nsavage neighbours, who had gathered with glee to the day of Jerusalem\u2019s\ncalamity, assisted the Chaldeans in capturing the fugitives, and\nEdomites came up from the south on the desolate land.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt has been necessary to follow so far the course of events, because\nof our prophets Zephaniah is placed in each of the three sections\nof Josiah\u2019s reign, and by some even in Jehoiakim\u2019s; Nahum has been\nassigned to different points between the eve of the first and the\neve of the second siege of Niniveh; and Habakkuk has been placed\nby different critics in almost every year from 621 to the reign of\nJehoiachin; while Obadiah, whom we shall find reasons for dating during\nthe Exile, describes the behaviour of Edom at the final siege of\nJerusalem. The next of the Twelve, Haggai, may have been born before\nthe Exile, but did not prophesy till 520. Zechariah appeared the same\nyear, Malachi not for half a century after. These three are prophets\nof the Persian period. With the approach of the Greeks Joel appears,\nthen comes the prophecy which we find in the end of Zechariah\u2019s book,\nand last of all the Book of Jonah. To all these post-exilic prophets we\nshall provide later on the necessary historical introductions.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] See Vol. I., p. viii.\n\n[3] Expositor\u2019s Bible, _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._, Chap. II.\n\n[4] It is uncertain whether Hezekiah was an Assyrian vassal during\nthese years, as his successor Manasseh is recorded to have been in 676.\n\n[5] 2 Kings xviii. 4.\n\n[6] The exact date is quite uncertain; 695 is suggested on the\nchronological table prefixed to this volume, but it may have been 690\nor 685.\n\n[7] Cf. McCurdy, _History, Prophecy and the Monuments_, \u00a7 799.\n\n[8] Stade (_Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, I., pp. 627 f.) denies to\nManasseh the reconstruction of the high places, the Baal altars and\nthe Asheras, for he does not believe that Hezekiah had succeeded in\ndestroying these. He takes 2 Kings xxi. 3, which describes these\nreconstructions, as a late interpolation rendered necessary to\nreconcile the tradition that Hezekiah\u2019s reforms had been quite in the\nspirit of Deuteronomy, with the fact that there were still high places\nin the land when Josiah began his reforms. Further, Stade takes the\nrest of 2 Kings xxi. 2_b_-7 as also an interpolation, but unlike verse\n3 an accurate account of Manasseh\u2019s idolatrous institutions, because\nit is corroborated by the account of Josiah\u2019s reforms, 2 Kings xxiii.\nStade also discusses this passage in _Z.A.T.W._, 1886, pp. 186 ff.\n\n[9] See Vol. I., p. 41. In addition to the reasons of the change given\nabove, we must remember that we are now treating, not of Northern\nIsrael, but of the more stern and sullen Jud\u00e6ans.\n\n[10] 2 Kings xxi., xxiii.\n\n[11] _Filled from mouth to mouth_ (2 Kings xxi. 16).\n\n[12] Jer. ii. 30.\n\n[13] We have already seen that there is no reason for that theory of so\nmany critics which assigns to this period Micah. See Vol. I., p. 370.\n\n[14] 2 Kings xxi. 10 ff.\n\n[15] Whether the parenthetical apostrophes to Jehovah as Maker of\nthe heavens, their hosts and all the powers of nature (Amos iv. 13,\nv. 8, 9, ix. 5, 6), are also to be attributed to Manasseh\u2019s reign is\nmore doubtful. Yet the following facts are to be observed: that these\npassages are also (though to a less degree than v. 26 f.) parenthetic;\nthat their language seems of a later cast than that of the time of Amos\n(see Vol. I., pp. 204, 205: though here evidence is adduced to show\nthat the late features are probably post-exilic); and that Jehovah\nis expressly named as the _Maker_ of certain of the stars. Similarly\nwhen Mohammed seeks to condemn the worship of the heavenly bodies, he\ninsists that God is their Maker. Koran, Sur. 41, 37: \u201cTo the signs of\nHis Omnipotence belong night and day, sun and moon; but do not pray to\nsun or moon, for God hath created them.\u201d Sur. 53, 50: \u201cBecause He is\nthe Lord of Sirius.\u201d On the other side see Driver\u2019s _Joel and Amos_\n(Cambridge Bible for Schools Series), 1897, pp. 118 f., 189.\n\nHow deeply Manasseh had planted in Israel the worship of the heavenly\nhost may be seen from the survival of the latter through all the\nreforms of Josiah and the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. vii. 18,\nviii., xliv.; Ezek. viii. Cf. Stade, _Gesch. des V. Israel_, I., pp.\n629 ff.).\n\n[16] The Jehovist and Elohist into the closely mortised JE. Stade\nindeed assigns to the period of Manasseh Israel\u2019s first acquaintance\nwith the Babylonian cosmogonies and myths which led to that\nreconstruction of them in the spirit of her own religion which we find\nin the Jehovistic portions of the beginning of Genesis (_Gesch. des V.\nIsr._, I., pp. 630 ff.). But it may well be doubted (1) whether the\nreign of Manasseh affords time for this assimilation, and (2) whether\nit was likely that Assyrian and Babylonian theology could make so deep\nand lasting impression upon the purer faith of Israel at a time when\nthe latter stood in such sharp hostility to all foreign influences and\nwas so bitterly persecuted by the parties in Israel who had succumbed\nto these influences.\n\n[17] Chaps. v.\u2014xxvi., xxviii.\n\n[18] 621 B.C.\n\n[19] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.\n\n[20] 2 Kings xxi. 23.\n\n[21] But in his conquests of Hauran, Northern Arabia and the eastern\nneighbours of Judah, he had evidently sought to imitate the policy of\nAsarhaddon in 675 f., and secure firm ground in Palestine and Arabia\nfor a subsequent attack upon Egypt. That this never came shows more\nthan anything else could Assyria\u2019s consciousness of growing weakness.\n\n[22] The name of Josiah\u2019s (\u05d9\u05b9\u05d0\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d9\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc) mother was Jedidah (\u05d9\u05b0\u05d3\u05b4\u05d9\u05d3\u05b8\u05d4),\ndaughter of Adaiah (\u05e2\u05b2\u05d3\u05b8\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4) of Bo\u1e63\u1e33ath in the Shephelah of Judah.\n\n[23] 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.\n\n[24] Zeph. i. 4: the LXX. reads _names of Baal_. See below, p. 40, n. 87.\n\n[25] _Ibid._, 5.\n\n[26] _Ibid._, 8-12.\n\n[27] I. 102 ff.\n\n[28] Herod., I. 105.\n\n[29] The new name of Bethshan in the mouth of Esdraelon, viz.\nScythopolis, is said to be derived from them (but see _Hist. Geog. of\nthe Holy Land_, pp. 363 f.); they conquered Askalon (Herod., I. 105).\n\n[30] 2 Kings xvii. 6: _and in the cities_ (LXX. _mountains_) _of the\nMedes_. The Heb. is \u05de\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05d9, Madai.\n\n[31] Mentioned by Sargon.\n\n[32] Sayce, _Empires of the East_, 239: cf. McCurdy, \u00a7 823 f.\n\n[33] Herod., I. 103.\n\n[34] Heb. Kasdim, \u05db\u05b7\u05bc\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05d3\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd; LXX. \u03a7\u03b1\u03bb\u03b4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03b9; Assyr. Kald\u00e2a, Kaldu. The\nHebrew form with _s_ is regarded by many authorities as the original,\nfrom the Assyrian root _kashadu_, to conquer, and the Assyrian form\nwith _l_ to have arisen by the common change of _sh_ through _r_ into\n_l_. The form with _s_ does not occur, however, in Assyrian, which also\npossesses the root _kaladu_, with the same meaning as _kashadu_. See\nMr. Pinches\u2019 articles on Chaldea and the Chaldeans in the new edition\nof Vol. I. of Smith\u2019s _Bible Dictionary_.\n\n[35] About 880 B.C. in the annals of Assurnatsirpal. See Chronological\nTable to Vol. I.\n\n[36] No inscriptions of Asshur-itil-ilani have been found later than\nthe first two years of his reign.\n\n[37] Billerbeck-Jeremias, \u201cDer Untergang Niniveh\u2019s,\u201d in Delitzsch and\nHaupt\u2019s _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Assyriologie_, III., p. 113.\n\n[38] Nahum ii.\n\n[39] See below, p. 120.\n\n[40] Abydenus (apud Euseb., _Chron._, I. 9) reports a marriage between\nNebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar\u2019s son, and the daughter of the Median king.\n\n[41] 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, met\nat Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have spent a\nyear or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government of, Syria\n(_ibid._, verses 33-35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, when\nNebuchadrezzar defeated him.\n\n[42] The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (_Israel u. J\u00fcd.\nGesch._, pp. 97 f.): \u201cDer Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um sich\nseinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, w\u00e4hrend die Meder\nund Chald\u00e4er die Stadt belagerten.\u201d\n\n[43] See above, p. 20, n. 37.\n\n[44] I. 106.\n\n[45] A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum\nat Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king\nrestored at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had\ndestroyed fifty-four years before, _i.e._ 607. Whether the Medes did\nthis before, during or after the siege of Niniveh is uncertain, but the\napproximate date of the siege, 608\u2014606, is thus marvellously confirmed.\nThe stele affirms that the Medes alone took Niniveh, but that they\nwere called in by Marduk, the Babylonian god, to assist Nabopolassar\nand avenge the deportation of his image by Sennacherib to Niniveh.\nMesserschmidt (_Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, I.\n1896) argues that the Medes were summoned by the Babylonians while the\nlatter were being sore pressed by the Assyrians. Winckler had already\n(_Untersuch._, pp. 124 ff., 1889) urged that the Babylonians would\nrefrain from taking an active part in the overthrow of Niniveh, in fear\nof incurring the guilt of sacrilege. Neither Messerschmidt\u2019s paper,\nnor Scheil\u2019s (who describes the stele in the _Recueil des Travaux_,\nXVIII. 1896), being accessible to me, I have written this note on the\ninformation supplied by Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Cambridge, in the\n_Expository Times_, 1896, and by Prof. A. B. Davidson in App. I. to\n_Nah., Hab. and Zeph._\n\n[46] Berosus and Abydenus in Eusebius.\n\n[47] This spelling (Jer. xlix. 28) is nearer the original than the\nalternative Hebrew Nebuchad_n_ezzar. But the LXX. \u039d\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c1, and\nthe \u039d\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 of Abydenus and Megasthenes and \u039d\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03ba\u03bf\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 of\nStrabo, have preserved the more correct vocalisation; for the original\nis Nabu-kudurri-u\u1e63ur = Nebo, defend the crown!\n\n[48] But see below, pp. 123 f.\n\n[49] Below, pp. 121 ff.\n\n[50] 2 Kings xxii. 11-20. The genuineness of this passage is proved (as\nagainst Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, I.) by the promise which\nit gives to Josiah of a peaceful death. Had it been written after\nthe battle of Megiddo, in which Josiah was slain, it could not have\ncontained such a promise.\n\n[51] Jer. vii. 4, viii. 8.\n\n[52] vi. 1.\n\n[53] All these reforms in 2 Kings xxiii.\n\n[54] Jer. xxii. 15 f.\n\n[55] _Ibid._, ver. 16.\n\n[56] We have no record of this, but a prince who so rashly flung\nhimself in the way of Egypt would not hesitate to claim authority over\nMoab and Ammon.\n\n[57] 2 Kings xxiii. 24. The question whether Necho came by land from\nEgypt or brought his troops in his fleet to Acre is hardly answered by\nthe fact that Josiah went to Megiddo to meet him. But Megiddo on the\nwhole tells more for the land than the sea. It is not on the path from\nAcre to the Euphrates; it is the key of the land-road from Egypt to the\nEuphrates. Josiah could have no hope of stopping Pharaoh on the broad\nlevels of Philistia; but at Megiddo there was a narrow pass, and the\nonly chance of arresting so large an army as it moved in detachments.\nJosiah\u2019s tactics were therefore analogous to those of Saul, who also\nleft his own territory and marched north to Esdraelon, to meet his\nfoe\u2014and death.\n\n[58] A. B. Davidson, _The Exile and the Restoration_, p. 8 (Bible Class\nPrimers, ed. by Salmond; Edin., T. & T. Clark, 1897).\n\n[59] 2 Kings xxiii. 33-35.\n\n[60] Jer. xxii. 13-15.\n\n[61] Jer. xi.\n\n[62] xxv. 1 ff.\n\n[63] xxxvi.\n\n[64] 2 Kings xxiv. 1. In the chronological table appended to Kautzsch\u2019s\n_Bibel_ this verse and Jehoiakim\u2019s submission are assigned to 602. But\nthis allows too little time for Nebuchadrezzar to confirm his throne\nin Babylon and march to Palestine, and it is not corroborated by the\nrecord in the Book of Jeremiah of events in Judah in 604\u2014602.\n\n[65] Nebuchadrezzar did not die till 562.\n\n[66] See _Isaiah i.\u2014xxxix._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible), pp. 223 f.\n\n[67] See above, p. 26, n. 56.\n\n[68] 2 Kings xxiv. 2.\n\n[69] Jer. xxxvii. 30, but see 2 Kings xxiv. 6.\n\n[70] So Josephus puts it (X. _Antiq._, vii. 1). Jehoiachin was\nunusually bewailed (Lam. iv. 20; Ezek. xvii. 22 ff.). He survived\nin captivity till the death of Nebuchadrezzar, whose successor\nEvil-Merodach in 561 took him from prison and gave him a place in his\npalace (2 Kings xxv. 27 ff.).\n\n\n\n\n _ZEPHANIAH_\n\n\n\n\n _Dies Ir\u00e6, Dies Illa!_\u2014ZEPH. i. 15.\n\n\n\u201cHis book is the first tinging of prophecy with apocalypse: that is the\nmoment which it supplies in the history of Israel\u2019s religion.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n\n _THE BOOK OF ZEPHANIAH_\n\n\nThe Book of Zephaniah is one of the most difficult in the prophetic\ncanon. The title is very generally accepted; the period from which\nchap. i. dates is recognised by practically all critics to be the reign\nof Josiah, or at least the last third of the seventh century. But after\nthat doubts start, and we find present nearly every other problem of\nintroduction.\n\nTo begin with, the text is very damaged. In some passages we may be\nquite sure that we have not the true text;[71] in others we cannot be\nsure that we have it,[72] and there are several glosses.[73] The bulk\nof the second chapter was written in the Qinah, or elegiac measure, but\nas it now stands the rhythm is very much broken. It is difficult to\nsay whether this is due to the dilapidation of the original text or to\nwilful insertion of glosses and other later passages. The Greek version\nof Zephaniah possesses the same general features as that of other\ndifficult prophets. Occasionally it enables us to correct the text;\nbut by the time it was made the text must already have contained the\nsame corruptions which we encounter, and the translators were ignorant\nbesides of the meaning of some phrases which to us are plain.[74]\n\nThe difficulties of textual criticism as well as of translation are\naggravated by the large number of words, grammatical forms and phrases\nwhich either happen very seldom in the Old Testament,[75] or nowhere\nelse in it at all.[76] Of the rare words and phrases, a very few (as\nwill be seen from the appended notes) are found in earlier writings.\nIndeed all that are found are from the authentic prophecies of Isaiah,\nwith whose style and doctrine Zephaniah\u2019s own exhibit most affinity.\nAll the other rarities of vocabulary and grammar are shared only by\n_later_ writers; and as a whole the language of Zephaniah exhibits\nsymptoms which separate it by many years from the language of the\nprophets of the eighth century, and range it with that of Jeremiah,\nEzekiel, the Second Isaiah and still later literature. It may be useful\nto the student to collect in a note the most striking of these symptoms\nof the comparative lateness of Zephaniah\u2019s dialect.[77]\n\nWe now come to the question of date, and we take, to begin with, the\nFirst Chapter. It was said above that critics agree as to the general\nperiod\u2014between 639, when Josiah began to reign, and 600. But this\nperiod was divided into three very different sections, and each of\nthese has received considerable support from modern criticism. The\ngreat majority of critics place the chapter in the early years of\nJosiah, before the enforcement of Deuteronomy and the great Reform in\n621.[78] Others have argued for the later years of Josiah, 621\u2014608, on\nthe ground that the chapter implies that the great Reform has already\ntaken place, and otherwise shows knowledge of Deuteronomy;[79] while\nsome prefer the days of reaction under Jehoiakim, 608 ff.,[80] and\nassume that the phrase in the title, _in the days of Josiah_, is a late\nand erroneous inference from i. 4.\n\nThe evidence for the argument consists of the title and the condition\nof Judah reflected in the body of the chapter. The latter is a definite\npiece of oratory. Under the alarm of an immediate and general war,\nZephaniah proclaims a vast destruction upon the earth. Judah must fall\nbeneath it: the worshippers of Baal, of the host of heaven and of\nMilcom, the apostates from Jehovah, the princes and house of the king,\nthe imitators of foreign fashions, and the forceful and fraudulent,\nshall be cut off in a great slaughter. Those who have grown sceptical\nand indifferent to Jehovah shall be unsettled by invasion and war. This\nshall be the Day of Jehovah, near and immediate, a day of battle and\ndisaster on the whole land.\n\nThe conditions reflected are thus twofold\u2014the idolatrous and sceptical\nstate of the people, and an impending invasion. But these suit,\nmore or less exactly, each of the three sections of our period. For\nJeremiah distinctly states that he had to attack idolatry in Judah for\ntwenty-three years, 627 to 604;[81] he inveighs against the falseness\nand impurity of the people alike before the great Reform, and after it\nwhile Josiah was still alive, and still more fiercely under Jehoiakim.\nAnd, while before 621 the great Scythian invasion was sweeping upon\nPalestine from the north, after 621, and especially after 604, the\nBabylonians from the same quarter were visibly threatening the land.\nBut when looked at more closely, the chapter shows several features\nwhich suit the second section of our period less than they do the\nother two. The worship of the host of heaven, probably introduced\nunder Manasseh, was put down by Josiah in 621; it revived under\nJehoiakim,[82] but during the latter years of Josiah it cannot possibly\nhave been so public as Zephaniah describes.[83]\n\nOther reasons which have been given for those years are\ninconclusive[84]\u2014the chapter, for instance, makes no indubitable\nreference to Deuteronomy or the Covenant of 621\u2014and on the whole we\nmay leave the end of Josiah\u2019s reign out of account. Turning to the\nthird section, Jehoiakim\u2019s reign, we find one feature of the prophecy\nwhich suits it admirably. The temper described in ver. 12\u2014_men who are\nsettled on their lees, who say in their heart, Jehovah doeth neither\ngood nor evil_\u2014is the kind of temper likely to have been produced\namong the less earnest adherents of Jehovah by the failure of the\ngreat Reform in 621 to effect either the purity or the prosperity of\nthe nation. But this is more than counterbalanced by the significant\nexception of the king from the condemnation which ver. 8 passes on\nthe _princes and the sons of the king_. Such an exception could not\nhave been made when Jehoiakim was on the throne; it points almost\nconclusively to the reign of the good Josiah. And with this agrees the\ntitle of the chapter\u2014_in the days of Josiah_.[85] We are, therefore,\ndriven back to the years of Josiah before 621. In these we find no\ndiscrepancy either with the chapter itself, or with its title. The\nsouthward march of the Scythians,[86] between 630 and 625, accounts for\nZephaniah\u2019s alarm of a general war, including the invasion of Judah;\nthe idolatrous practices which he describes may well have been those\nsurviving from the days of Manasseh,[87] and not yet reached by the\ndrastic measures of 621; the temper of scepticism and hopelessness\ncondemned by ver. 12 was possible among those adherents of Jehovah who\nhad hoped greater things from the overthrow of Amon than the slow and\nsmall reforms of the first fifteen years of Josiah\u2019s reign. Nor is a\ndate before 621 made at all difficult by the genealogy of Zephaniah\nin the title. If, as is probable,[88] the Hezekiah given as his\ngreat-great-grandfather be Hezekiah the king, and if he died about 695,\nand Manasseh, his successor, who was then twelve, was his eldest son,\nthen by 630 Zephaniah cannot have been much more than twenty years of\nage, and not more than twenty-five by the time the Scythian invasion\nhad passed away.[89] It is therefore by no means impossible to suppose\nthat he prophesied before 625; and besides, the data of the genealogy\nin the title are too precarious to make them valid, as against an\ninference from the contents of the chapter itself.\n\nThe date, therefore, of the first chapter of Zephaniah may be given as\nabout 625 B.C., and probably rather before than after that year, as the\ntide of Scythian invasion has apparently not yet ebbed.\n\nThe other two chapters have within recent years been almost wholly\ndenied to Zephaniah. Kuenen doubted chap. iii. 9-20. Stade makes all\nchap. iii. post-exilic, and suspects ii. 1-3, 11. A very thorough\nexamination of them has led Schwally[90] to assign to exilic or\npost-exilic times the whole of the little sections comprising them,\nwith the possible exception of chap. iii. 1-7, which \u201cmay be\u201d\nZephaniah\u2019s. His essay has been subjected to a searching and generally\nhostile criticism by a number of leading scholars;[91] and he has\nadmitted the inconclusiveness of some of his reasons.[92]\n\nChap. ii. 1-4 is assigned by Schwally to a date later than Zephaniah\u2019s,\nprincipally because of the term _meekness_ (ver. 3), which is a\nfavourite one with post-exilic writers. He has been sufficiently\nanswered;[93] and the close connection of vv. 1-3 with chap. i. has\nbeen clearly proved.[94] Chap. ii. 4-15 is the passage in elegiac\nmeasure but broken, an argument for the theory that insertions have\nbeen made in it. The subject is a series of foreign nations\u2014Philistia\n(5-7), Moab and Ammon (8-10), Egypt (11) and Assyria (13-15). The\npassage has given rise to many doubts; every one must admit the\ndifficulty of coming to a conclusion as to its authenticity. On the\none hand, the destruction just predicted is so universal that, as\nProfessor Davidson says, we should expect Zephaniah to mention other\nnations than Judah.[95] The concluding oracle on Niniveh must have\nbeen published before 608, and even Schwally admits that it may be\nZephaniah\u2019s own. But if this be so, then we may infer that the first\nof the oracles on Philistia is also Zephaniah\u2019s, for both it and the\noracle on Assyria are in the elegiac measure, a fact which makes it\nprobable that the whole passage, however broken and intruded upon, was\noriginally a unity. Nor is there anything in the oracle on Philistia\nincompatible with Zephaniah\u2019s date. Philistia lay on the path of the\nScythian invasion; the phrase in ver. 7, _shall turn their captivity_,\nis not necessarily exilic. As Cornill, too, points out, the expression\nin ver. 13, _He will stretch out His hand to the north_, implies that\nthe prophecy has already looked in other directions. There remains the\npassage between the oracles on Philistia and Assyria. This is not in\nthe elegiac measure. Its subject is Moab and Ammon, who were not on the\nline of the Scythian invasion, and Wellhausen further objects to it,\nbecause the attitude to Israel of the two peoples whom it describes\nis that which is attributed to them only just before the Exile and\nsurprises us in Josiah\u2019s reign. Dr. Davidson meets this objection by\npointing out that, just as in Deuteronomy, so here, Moab and Ammon are\ndenounced, while Edom, which in Deuteronomy is spoken of with kindness,\nis here not denounced at all. A stronger objection to the passage is\nthat ver. 11 predicts the conversion of the nations, while ver. 12\nmakes them the prey of Jehovah\u2019s sword, and in this ver. 12 follows\non naturally to ver. 7. On this ground as well as on the absence of\nthe elegiac measure the oracle on Moab and Ammon is strongly to be\nsuspected.\n\nOn the whole, then, the most probable conclusion is that chap. ii.\n4-15 was originally an authentic oracle of Zephaniah\u2019s in the elegiac\nmetre, uttered at the same date as chap. i.\u2014ii. 3, the period of the\nScythian invasion, though from a different standpoint; and that it has\nsuffered considerable dilapidation (witness especially vv. 6 and 14),\nand probably one great intrusion, vv. 8-10.\n\nThere remains the Third Chapter. The authenticity has been denied by\nSchwally, who transfers the whole till after the Exile. But the chapter\nis not a unity.[96]\n\nIn the first place, it falls into two sections, vv. 1-13 and 14-20.\nThere is no reason to take away the bulk of the first section from\nZephaniah. As Schwally admits, the argument here is parallel to that\nof chap. i.\u2014ii. 3. It could hardly have been applied to Jerusalem\nduring or after the Exile, but suits her conditions before her fall.\nSchwally\u2019s linguistic objections to a pre-exilic date have been\nanswered by Budde.[97] He holds ver. 6 to be out of place and puts\nit after ver. 8, and this may be. But as it stands it appeals to the\nimpenitent Jews of ver. 5 with the picture of the judgment God has\nalready completed upon the nations, and contrasts with ver. 7, in which\nGod says that He trusts Israel will repent. Vv. 9 and 10 are, we shall\nsee, obviously an intrusion, as Budde maintains and Davidson admits to\nbe possible.[98]\n\nWe reach more certainty when we come to the second section of the\nchapter, vv. 14-20. Since Kuenen it has been recognised by the majority\nof critics that we have here a prophecy from the end of the Exile or\nafter the Return. The temper has changed. Instead of the austere and\nsombre outlook of chap. i.\u2014ii. 3 and chap. iii. 1-13, in which the\nsinful Israel is to be saved indeed, but only as by fire, we have a\ntriumphant prophecy of her recovery from all affliction (nothing is\nsaid of her sin) and of her glory among the nations of the world. To\nput it otherwise, while the genuine prophecies of Zephaniah almost\ngrudgingly allow a door of escape to a few righteous and humble\nIsraelites from a judgment which is to fall alike on Israel and the\nGentiles, chap. iii. 14-20 predicts Israel\u2019s deliverance from her\nGentile oppressors, her return from captivity and the establishment\nof her renown over the earth. The language, too, has many resemblances\nto that of Second Isaiah.[99] Obviously therefore we have here, added\nto the severe prophecies of Zephaniah, such a more hopeful, peaceful\nepilogue as we saw was added, during the Exile or immediately after it,\nto the despairing prophecies of Amos.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[71] i. 3_b_, 5_b_; ii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 last word, 14_b_; iii. 18, 19_a_,\n20.\n\n[72] i. 14_b_; ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17.\n\n[73] i. 3_b_, 5_b_; ii. 2, 6; iii. 5 (?).\n\n[74] For details see translation below.\n\n[75] i. 3, \u05de\u05b7\u05db\u05b0\u05e9\u05b5\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea, only in Isa. iii. 6; 15, \u05de\u05e9\u05d5\u05d0\u05d4, only in Job\nxxx. 3, xxxviii. 27\u2014cf. Psalms lxxiii. 18, lxxiv. 3; ii. 8, \u05d2\u05d3\u05e4\u05d9\u05dd, Isa.\nxliii. 28\u2014cf. li. 7; 9, \u05d7\u05e8\u05d5\u05dc, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; 15, \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05d6\u05d4,\nIsa. xxii. 2, xxiii. 7, xxxii. 13\u2014cf. xiii. 3, xxiv. 8; iii. 1, \u05e0\u05d2\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4,\nsee next note but one; 3, \u05d6\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9 \u05e2\u05e8\u05d1, Hab. i. 8; 11, \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05d6\u05d9 \u05d2\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea\u05da, Isa.\nxiii. 3; 18, \u05e0\u05d5\u05d2\u05d9, Lam. i. 4, \u05e0\u05d5\u05d2\u05d5\u05ea.\n\n[76] i. 11, \u05d4\u05de\u05db\u05ea\u05e9 as the name of a part of Jerusalem, otherwise only\nJer. xv. 19; \u05e0\u05d8\u05d9\u05dc\u05d9 \u05db\u05e1\u05e3\u200e; 12, \u05e7\u05e4\u05d0 in pt. Qal, and otherwise only Exod.\nxv. 8, Zech. xiv. 6, Job x. 10; 14, \u05de\u05b7\u05d4\u05b5\u05e8 (adj.), but the pointing\nmay be wrong\u2014cf. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isa. viii. 1, 3; \u05e6\u05e8\u05d7 in Qal,\nelsewhere only once in Hi. Isa. xlii. 13; 17, \u05dc\u05d7\u05d5\u05dd in sense of flesh,\ncf. Job xx. 23; 18, \u05e0\u05d1\u05d4\u05dc\u05d4 if a noun (?); ii. 1, \u05e7\u05e9\u05e9 in Qal and Hithpo,\nelsewhere only in Polel; 9, \u05de\u05db\u05e8\u05d4 ,\u05de\u05de\u05e9\u05e7; \u200e11, \u05e8\u05d6\u05d4, to make lean,\notherwise only in Isa. xvii. 4, to be lean; 14, \u202a \u05d0\u05e8\u05d6\u05d4\u202c (?); iii. 1, \u202a\n\u05de\u05e8\u05d0\u05d4\u202c, pt. of \u202a \u05d9\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4 ;\u05de\u05e8\u05d4\u202c, pt. Qal, in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16, it may\nbe a noun; 4, \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9\u05d9 \u05d1\u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05ea;\u200e 6, \u05e0\u05e6\u05d3\u05d5; \u200e9, \u05e9\u05db\u05dd \u05d0\u05d7\u05d3; \u200e10, \u05e2\u05ea\u05e8\u05d9\n\u05d1\u05ea\u05be\u05e4\u05d5\u05e6\u05d9 (?); \u200e15, \u05e4\u05e0\u05d4 \u200ein sense to _turn away_; 18, \u05de\u05de\u05da \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u202c (?).\n\n[77] i. 8, etc., \u05e4\u05e7\u05d3 \u05e2\u05dc, followed by person, but not by thing\u2014cf. Jer.\nix. 24, xxiii. 34, etc., Job xxxvi. 23, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezek. i.\n2; 13, \u05de\u05e9\u05c1\u05e1\u05d4, only in Hab. ii. 7, Isa. xlii., Jer. xxx. 16, 2 Kings\nxxi. 14; 17, \u05d4\u05b5\u05e6\u05b5\u05e8, Hi. of \u05e6\u05e8\u05e8, only in 1 Kings viii. 37, and Deut.,\n2 Chron., Jer., Neh.; ii. 3, \u05e2\u05e0\u05d5\u05d4;\u200e 8, \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05e4\u05d9\u05dd, Isa. xliii. 28, li. 7\n(fem. pl.); 9, \u05d7\u05e8\u05d5\u05dc, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; iii. 1, \u05e0\u05d2\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4, Ni, pt.\n= impure, Isa. lix. 3, Lam. iv. 14; \u05d9\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4, a pt. in Jer. xlvi. 16, l.\n16; 3, \u05d6\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9 \u05e2\u05e8\u05d1, Hab. i. 8\u2014cf. Jer. v. 6, \u05d6\u05d0\u05d1 \u05e2\u05e8\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea;\u200e 9, \u05d1\u05e8\u05d5\u05e8, Isa.\nxlix. 2, \u05d1\u05e8\u05e8, Ezek. xx. 38, 1 Chron. vii. 40, ix. 22, xvi. 41, Neh. v.\n18, Job xxxiii. 3, Eccles. iii. 18, ix. 1; 11, \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05d6\u05d9 \u05d2\u05d0\u05d5\u05d4, Isa. xiii.\n3; 18, \u05e0\u05d5\u05bc\u05d2\u05b5\u05d9, Lam. i. 4 has \u05e0\u05d5\u05bc\u05d2\u05d5\u05ea.\n\n[78] So Hitzig, Ewald, Pusey, Kuenen, Robertson Smith (_Encyc. Brit._),\nDriver, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick, Budde, von Orelli, Cornill, Schwally,\nDavidson.\n\n[79] So Delitzsch, Kleinert, and Schulz (_Commentar \u00fcber den Proph.\nZeph._, 1892, p. 7, quoted by K\u00f6nig).\n\n[80] So K\u00f6nig.\n\n[81] Jer. xxv.\n\n[82] Jer. vii. 18.\n\n[83] i. 3.\n\n[84] Kleinert in his Commentary in Lange\u2019s _Bibelwerk_, and Delitzsch\nin his article in Herzog\u2019s _Real-Encyclop\u00e4die_\u00b2, both offer a number\nof inconclusive arguments. These are drawn from the position of\nZephaniah after Habakkuk, but, as we have seen, the order of the Twelve\nis not always chronological; from the supposition that Zephaniah i.\n7, _Silence before the Lord Jehovah_, quotes Habakkuk ii. 20, _Keep\nsilence before Him, all the earth_, but the phrase common to both is\ntoo general to be decisive, and if borrowed by one or other may just as\nwell have been Zephaniah\u2019s originally as Habakkuk\u2019s; from the phrase\n_remnant of Baal_ (i. 4), as if this were appropriate only after the\nReform of 621, but it was quite as appropriate after the beginnings\nof reform six years earlier; from the condemnation of _the sons of\nthe king_ (i. 8), whom Delitzsch takes as Josiah\u2019s sons, who before\nthe great Reform were too young to be condemned, while later their\ncharacters did develop badly and judgment fell upon all of them, but\n_sons of the king_, even if that be the correct reading (LXX. _house of\nthe king_), does not necessarily mean the reigning monarch\u2019s children;\nand from the assertion that Deuteronomy is quoted in the first chapter\nof Zephaniah, and \u201cso quoted as to show that the prophet needs only to\nput the people in mind of it as something supposed to be known,\u201d but\nthe verses cited in support of this (viz. 13, 15, 17: cf. Deut. xxviii.\n30 and 29) are too general in their character to prove the assertion.\nSee translation below.\n\n[85] K\u00f6nig has to deny the authenticity of this in order to make his\ncase for the reign of Jehoiakim. But nearly all critics take the phrase\nas genuine.\n\n[86] See above, p. 15. For inconclusive reasons Schwally, _Z.A.T.W._,\n1890, pp. 215\u2014217, prefers the Egyptians under Psamtik. See in answer\nDavidson, p. 98.\n\n[87] Not much stress can be laid upon the phrase _I will cut off the\nremnant of Baal_, ver. 4, for, if the reading be correct, it may only\nmean the destruction of Baal-worship, and not the uprooting of what has\nbeen left over.\n\n[88] See below, p. 47, n. 105.\n\n[89] If 695 be the date of the accession of Manasseh, being then\ntwelve, Amariah, Zephaniah\u2019s great-grandfather, cannot have been more\nthan ten, that is, born in 705. His son Gedaliah was probably not\nborn before 689, his son Kushi probably not before 672, and his son\nZephaniah probably not before 650.\n\n[90] _Z.A.T.W._, 1890, Heft 1.\n\n[91] Bacher, _Z.A.T.W._, 1891, 186; Cornill, _Einleitung_, 1891; Budde,\n_Theol. Stud. u. Krit._, 1893, 393 ff.; Davidson, _Nah., Hab. and\nZeph._, 100 ff.\n\n[92] _Z.A.T.W._, 1891, Heft 2.\n\n[93] By especially Bacher, Cornill and Budde as above.\n\n[94] See Budde and Davidson.\n\n[95] The ideal of chap. i.\u2014ii. 3, of the final security of a poor\nand lowly remnant of Israel, \u201cnecessarily implies that they shall no\nlonger be threatened by hostility from without, and this condition\nis satisfied by the prophet\u2019s view of the impending judgment on the\nancient enemies of his nation,\u201d _i.e._ those mentioned in ii. 4-15\n(Robertson Smith, _Encyc. Brit._, art. \u201cZephaniah\u201d).\n\n[96] See, however, Davidson for some linguistic reasons for taking the\ntwo sections as one. Robertson Smith, also in 1888 (_Encyc. Brit._,\nart. \u201cZephaniah\u201d), assumed (though not without pointing out the\npossibility of the addition of other pieces to the genuine prophecies\nof Zephaniah) that \u201ca single leading motive runs through the whole\u201d\nbook, and \u201cthe first two chapters would be incomplete without the\nthird, which moreover is certainly pre-exilic (vv. 1-4) and presents\nspecific points of contact with what precedes, as well as a general\nagreement in style and idea.\u201d\n\n[97] Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet \u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7 (ver. 5) was first\napplied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21),\nand became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) quotes\nExod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to \u200e\u05e0\u05e6\u05d3\u05d5 as\nborrowed from Aramaic.\n\n[98] Budde, p. 395; Davidson, 103. Schwally (230 ff.) seeks to prove\nthe unity of 9 and 10 with the context, but he has apparently mistaken\nthe meaning of ver. 8 (231). That surely does not mean that the nations\nare gathered in order to punish the godlessness of the Jews, but that\nthey may themselves be punished.\n\n[99] See Davidson, 103.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III\n\n _THE PROPHET AND THE REFORMERS_\n\n ZEPHANIAH i.\u2014ii. 3\n\n\nTowards the year 625, when King Josiah had passed out of his\nminority,[100] and was making his first efforts at religious reform,\nprophecy, long slumbering, awoke again in Israel.\n\nLike the king himself, its first heralds were men in their early\nyouth. In 627 Jeremiah calls himself but a boy, and Zephaniah can\nhardly have been out of his teens.[101] For the sudden outbreak of\nthese young lives there must have been a large reservoir of patience\nand hope gathered in the generation behind them. So Scripture itself\ntestifies. To Jeremiah it was said: _Before I formed thee in the belly\nI knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I consecrated\nthee._[102] In an age when names were bestowed only because of their\nsignificance,[103] both prophets bore that of Jehovah in their own. So\ndid Jeremiah\u2019s father, who was of the priests of Anathoth. Zephaniah\u2019s\n\u201cforbears\u201d are given for four generations, and with one exception\nthey also are called after Jehovah: _The Word of Jehovah which came\nto \u1e62ephanyah, son of Kushi, son of Gedhalyah, son of Amaryah, son of\nHiz\u1e33iyah, in the days of Joshiyahu,[104] Amon\u2019s son, king of Judah._\nZephaniah\u2019s great-great-grandfather Hezekiah was in all probability the\nking.[105] His father\u2019s name Kushi, or _Ethiop_, is curious. If we are\nright, that Zephaniah was a young man towards 625, then Kushi must have\nbeen born towards 663, about the time of the conflicts between Assyria\nand Egypt, and it is possible that, as Manasseh and the predominant\nparty in Judah so closely hung upon and imitated Assyria, the adherents\nof Jehovah put their hope in Egypt, whereof, it may be, this name\nKushi is a token.[106] The name Zephaniah itself, meaning _Jehovah\nhath hidden_, suggests the prophet\u2019s birth in the \u201ckilling-time\u201d of\nManasseh. There was at least one other contemporary of the same name\u2014a\npriest executed by Nebuchadrezzar.[107]\n\nOf the adherents of Jehovah, then, and probably of royal descent,\nZephaniah lived in Jerusalem. We descry him against her, almost\nas clearly as we descry Isaiah. In the glare and smoke of the\nconflagration which his vision sweeps across the world, only her\nfeatures stand out definite and particular: the flat roofs with men\nand women bowing in the twilight to the host of heaven, the crowds of\npriests, the nobles and their foreign fashions; the _Fishgate_, the New\nor _Second_ Town, where the rich lived, the _Heights_ to which building\nhad at last spread, and between them the hollow _Mortar_, with its\nmarkets, Ph\u0153nician merchants and money-dealers. In the first few verses\nof Zephaniah we see almost as much of Jerusalem as in the whole book\neither of Isaiah or Jeremiah.\n\nFor so young a man the vision of Zephaniah may seem strangely dark\nand final. Yet not otherwise was Isaiah\u2019s inaugural vision, and as a\nrule it is the young and not the old whose indignation is ardent and\nunsparing. Zephaniah carries this temper to the extreme. There is no\ngreat hope in his book, hardly any tenderness and never a glimpse of\nbeauty. A townsman, Zephaniah has no eye for nature; not only is no\nfair prospect described by him, he has not even a single metaphor\ndrawn from nature\u2019s loveliness or peace. He is pitilessly true to his\ngreat keynotes: _I will sweep, sweep from the face of the ground; He\nwill burn_, burn up everything. No hotter book lies in all the Old\nTestament. Neither dew nor grass nor tree nor any blossom lives in it,\nbut it is everywhere fire, smoke and darkness, drifting chaff, ruins,\nnettles, saltpits, and owls and ravens looking from the windows of\ndesolate palaces. Nor does Zephaniah foretell the restoration of nature\nin the end of the days. There is no prospect of a redeemed and fruitful\nland, but only of a group of battered and hardly saved characters: a\nfew meek and righteous are hidden from the fire and creep forth when it\nis over. Israel is left _a poor and humble folk_. No prophet is more\ntrue to the doctrine of the remnant, or more resolutely refuses to\nmodify it. Perhaps he died young.\n\nThe full truth, however, is that Zephaniah, though he found his\nmaterial in the events of his own day, tears himself loose from\nhistory altogether. To the earlier prophets the Day of the Lord, the\ncrisis of the world, is a definite point in history: full of terrible,\ndivine events, yet \u201cnatural\u201d ones\u2014battle, siege, famine, massacre and\ncaptivity. After it history is still to flow on, common days come back\nand Israel pursue their way as a nation. But to Zephaniah the Day of\nthe Lord begins to assume what we call the \u201csupernatural.\u201d The grim\ncolours are still woven of war and siege, but mixed with vague and\nsolemn terrors from another sphere, by which history appears to be\nswallowed up, and it is only with an effort that the prophet thinks of\na rally of Israel beyond. In short, with Zephaniah the Day of the Lord\ntends to become the Last Day. His book is the first tinging of prophecy\nwith apocalypse: that is the moment which it supplies in the history of\nIsrael\u2019s religion. And, therefore, it was with a true instinct that the\ngreat Christian singer of the Last Day took from Zephaniah his keynote.\nThe \u201cDies Ir\u00e6, Dies Illa\u201d of Thomas of Celano is but the Vulgate\ntranslation of Zephaniah\u2019s _A day of wrath is that day_.[108]\n\nNevertheless, though the first of apocalyptic writers, Zephaniah does\nnot allow himself the license of apocalypse. As he refuses to imagine\ngreat glory for the righteous, so he does not dwell on the terrors\nof the wicked. He is sober and restrained, a matter-of-fact man, yet\nwith power of imagination, who, amidst the vague horrors he summons,\ndelights in giving a sharp realistic impression. The Day of the Lord,\nhe says, what is it? _A strong man\u2014there!\u2014crying bitterly._[109]\n\nIt is to the fierce ardour, and to the elemental interests of the\nbook, that we owe the absence of two features of prophecy which are\nso constant in the prophets of the eighth century. Firstly, Zephaniah\nbetrays no interest in the practical reforms which (if we are right\nabout the date) the young king, his contemporary, had already\nstarted.[110] There was a party of reform, the party had a programme,\nthe programme was drawn from the main principles of prophecy and was\ndesigned to put these into practice. And Zephaniah was a prophet\u2014and\nignored them. This forms the dramatic interest of his book. Here was a\nman of the same faith which kings, priests and statesmen were striving\nto realise in public life, in the assured hope\u2014as is plain from the\ntemper of Deuteronomy\u2014that the nation as a whole would be reformed\nand become a very great nation, righteous and victorious. All this\nhe ignored, and gave his own vision of the future: Israel is a brand\nplucked from the burning; a very few meek and righteous are saved from\nthe conflagration of a whole world. Why? Because for Zephaniah the\nelements were loose, and when the elements were loose what was the\nuse of talking about reforms? The Scythians were sweeping down upon\nPalestine, with enough of God\u2019s wrath in them to destroy a people still\nso full of idolatry as Israel was; and if not the Scythians, then some\nother power in that dark, rumbling North which had ever been so full\nof doom. Let Josiah try to reform Israel, but it was neither Josiah\u2019s\nnor Israel\u2019s day that was falling. It was the Day of the Lord, and when\nHe came it was neither to reform nor to build up Israel, but to make\nvisitation and to punish in His wrath for the unbelief and wickedness\nof which the nation was still full.\n\nAn analogy to this dramatic opposition between prophet and reformer may\nbe found in our own century. At its crisis, in 1848, there were many\nrighteous men rich in hope and energy. The political institutions of\nEurope were being rebuilt. In our own land there were great measures\nfor the relief of labouring children and women, the organisation of\nlabour and the just distribution of wealth. But Carlyle that year held\napart from them all, and, though a personal friend of many of the\nreformers, counted their work hopeless: society was too corrupt, the\nrudest forces were loose, \u201cNiagara\u201d was near. Carlyle was proved wrong\nand the reformers right, but in the analogous situation of Israel the\nreformers were wrong and the prophet right. Josiah\u2019s hope and daring\nwere overthrown at Megiddo, and, though the Scythians passed away,\nZephaniah\u2019s conviction of the sin and doom of Israel was fulfilled, not\nforty years later, in the fall of Jerusalem and the great Exile.\n\nAgain, to the same elemental interests, as we may call them, is due the\nabsence from Zephaniah\u2019s pages of all the social and individual studies\nwhich form the charm of other prophets. With one exception, there is\nno analysis of character, no portrait, no satire. But the exception is\nworth dwelling upon: it describes the temper equally abhorred by both\nprophet and reformer\u2014that of the indifferent and stagnant man. Here we\nhave a subtle and memorable picture of character, which is not without\nits warnings for our own time.\n\nZephaniah heard God say: _And it shall be at that time that I will\nsearch out Jerusalem with lights, and I will make visitation upon the\nmen who are become stagnant upon their lees, who say in their hearts,\nJehovah doeth no good and doeth no evil._[111] The metaphor is clear.\nNew wine was left upon its lees only long enough to fix its colour\nand body.[112] If not then drawn off it grew thick and syrupy\u2014sweeter\nindeed than the strained wine, and to the taste of some more pleasant,\nbut feeble and ready to decay. \u201cTo settle upon one\u2019s lees\u201d became a\nproverb for sloth, indifference and the muddy mind. _Moab hath been at\nease from his youth and hath settled upon his lees, and hath not been\nemptied from vessel to vessel; therefore his taste stands in him and\nhis scent is not changed._[113] The characters stigmatised by Zephaniah\nare also obvious. They were a precipitate from the ferment of fifteen\nyears back. Through the cruel days of Manasseh and Amon hope had been\nstirred and strained, emptied from vessel to vessel, and so had sprung\nsparkling and keen into the new days of Josiah. But no miracle came,\nonly ten years of waiting for the king\u2019s majority and five more of\nsmall, tentative reforms. Nothing divine happened. There were but\nthe ambiguous successes of a small party who had secured the king\nfor their principles. The court was still full of foreign fashions,\nand idolatry was rank upon the housetops. Of course disappointment\nensued\u2014disappointment and listlessness. The new security of life became\na temptation; persecution ceased, and religious men lived again at\nease. So numbers of eager and sparkling souls, who had been in the\nfront of the movement, fell away into a selfish and idle obscurity. The\nprophet hears God say, _I must search Jerusalem with lights_ in order\nto find them. They had \u201cfallen from the van and the freemen\u201d; they had\n\u201csunk to the rear and the slaves,\u201d where they wallowed in the excuse\nthat _Jehovah_ Himself _would do nothing\u2014neither good_, therefore it\nis useless to attempt reform like Josiah and his party, _nor evil_,\ntherefore Zephaniah\u2019s prophecy of destruction is also vain. Exactly\nthe same temper was encountered by Mazzini in the second stage of\nhis career. Many of those, who with him had eagerly dreamt of a free\nItaly, fell away when the first revolt failed\u2014fell away not merely into\nweariness and fear, but, as he emphasises, into the very two tempers\nwhich are described by Zephaniah, scepticism and self-indulgence.\n\nAll this starts questions for ourselves. Here is evidently the same\npublic temper, which at all periods provokes alike the despair of the\nreformer and the indignation of the prophet: the criminal apathy of the\nwell-to-do classes sunk in ease and religious indifference. We have\nto-day the same mass of obscure, nameless persons, who oppose their\nalmost unconquerable inertia to every movement of reform, and are the\ndrag upon all vital and progressive religion. The great causes of God\nand Humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but\nby the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands\nof indifferent nobodies. God\u2019s causes are never destroyed by being\nblown up, but by being sat upon. It is not the violent and anarchical\nwhom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but the slow,\nthe staid, the respectable. And the danger of these does not lie in\ntheir stupidity. Notwithstanding all their religious profession, it\nlies in their real scepticism. Respectability may be the precipitate\nof unbelief. Nay, it is that, however religious its mask, wherever\nit is mere comfort, decorousness and conventionality; where, though\nit would abhor articulately confessing that God does nothing, it\nvirtually means so\u2014_says_ so (as Zephaniah puts it) _in its heart_, by\nrefusing to share manifest opportunities of serving Him, and covers\nits sloth and its fear by sneering that God is not with the great\ncrusades for freedom and purity to which it is summoned. In these ways,\nRespectability is the precipitate which unbelief naturally forms in\nthe selfish ease and stillness of so much of our middle-class life.\nAnd that is what makes mere respectability so dangerous. Like the\nunshaken, unstrained wine to which the prophet compares its obscure\nand muddy comfort, it tends to decay. To some extent our respectable\nclasses are just the dregs and lees of our national life; like all\ndregs, they are subject to corruption. A great sermon could be\npreached on the putrescence of respectability\u2014how the ignoble comfort\nof our respectable classes and their indifference to holy causes\nlead to sensuality, and poison the very institutions of the Home and\nthe Family, on which they pride themselves. A large amount of the\nlicentiousness of the present day is not that of outlaw and disordered\nlives, but is bred from the settled ease and indifference of many of\nour middle-class families.\n\nIt is perhaps the chief part of the sin of the obscure units, which\nform these great masses of indifference, that they think they escape\nnotice and cover their individual responsibility. At all times many\nhave sought obscurity, not because they are humble, but because they\nare slothful, cowardly or indifferent. Obviously it is this temper\nwhich is met by the words, _I will search out Jerusalem with lights_.\nNone of us shall escape because we have said, \u201cI will go with the\ncrowd,\u201d or \u201cI am a common man and have no right to thrust myself\nforward.\u201d We shall be followed and judged, each of us for his and her\npersonal attitude to the great movements of our time. These things are\nnot too high for us: they are _our_ duty; and we cannot escape our duty\nby slinking into the shadow.\n\nFor all this wickedness and indifference Zephaniah sees prepared the\nDay of the Lord\u2014near, hastening and very terrible. It sweeps at first\nin vague desolation and ruin of all things, but then takes the outlines\nof a solemn slaughter-feast for which Jehovah has consecrated the\nguests, the dim unnamed armies from the north. Judah shall be invaded,\nand they that are at ease, who say _Jehovah does nothing_, shall be\nunsettled and routed. One vivid trait comes in like a screech upon the\nhearts of a people unaccustomed for years to war. _Hark, Jehovah\u2019s\nDay!_ cries the prophet. _A strong man\u2014there!\u2014crying bitterly._ From\nthis flash upon the concrete, he returns to a great vague terror,\nin which earthly armies merge in heavenly; battle, siege, storm and\ndarkness are mingled, and destruction is spread abroad upon the whole\nearth. The first shades of Apocalypse are upon us.\n\nWe may now take the full text of this strong and significant prophecy.\nWe have already given the title. Textual emendations and other points\nare explained in footnotes.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_I will sweep, sweep away everything from the face of the ground\u2014oracle\nof Jehovah\u2014sweep man and beast, sweep the fowl of the heaven and the\nfish of the sea, and I will bring to ruin[114] the wicked and cut off\nthe men of wickedness from the ground\u2014oracle of Jehovah. And I will\nstretch forth My hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of\nJerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant[115] of the\nBaal,[116] the names[117] of the priestlings with the priests, and\nthem who upon the housetops bow themselves to the host of heaven, and\nthem who...[118] swear by their Melech,[119] and them who have turned\nfrom following Jehovah, and who do not seek Jehovah nor have inquired\nof Him._\n\n_Silence for the Lord Jehovah! For near is Jehovah\u2019s Day. Jehovah has\nprepared a[120] slaughter, He has consecrated His guests._\n\n_And it shall be in Jehovah\u2019s day of slaughter that I will make\nvisitation upon the princes and the house[121] of the king, and upon\nall who array themselves in foreign raiment; and I will make visitation\nupon all who leap over the threshold[122] on that day, who fill their\nlord\u2019s house full of violence and fraud._\n\n_And on that day\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014there shall be a noise of crying\nfrom the Fishgate, and wailing from the Mishneh,[123] and great havoc\non the Heights. Howl,_ _O dwellers in the Mortar,[124] for undone are\nall the merchant folk,[125] cut off are all the money-dealers.[126]_\n\n_And in that time it shall be, that I will search Jerusalem with\nlanterns, and make visitation upon the men who are become stagnant\nupon their lees, who in their hearts say, Jehovah doeth no good and\ndoeth no evil.[127] Their substance shall be for spoil, and their\nhouses for wasting...._[128]\n\n_Near is the great Day of Jehovah, near and very speedy.[129] Hark, the\nDay of Jehovah! A strong man\u2014there!\u2014crying bitterly!_\n\n_A day of wrath is that Day![130] Day of siege and blockade, day of\nstress and distress,[131] day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and\nheavy mist, day of the war-horn and battle-roar, up against the fenced\ncities and against the highest turrets! And I will beleaguer men, and\nthey shall walk like the blind, for they have sinned against Jehovah;\nand poured out shall their blood be like dust, and the flesh of them\nlike dung. Even their silver, even their gold shall not avail to save\nthem in the day of Jehovah\u2019s wrath,[132] and in the fire of His zeal\nshall all the earth be devoured, for destruction, yea,[133] sudden\ncollapse shall He make of all the inhabitants of the earth._\n\nUpon this vision of absolute doom there follows[134] a qualification\nfor the few meek and righteous. They may be hidden on the day of the\nLord\u2019s anger; but even for them escape is only a possibility. Note the\nabsence of all mention of the Divine mercy as the cause of deliverance.\nZephaniah has no gospel of that kind. The conditions of escape are\nsternly ethical\u2014meekness, the doing of justice and righteousness. So\naustere is our prophet.\n\n...,[135] _O people unabashed![136] before that ye become as the\ndrifting chaff, before the anger of Jehovah come upon you,[137] before\nthere come upon you the day of Jehovah\u2019s wrath;[138] seek Jehovah, all\nye meek of the land who do His ordinance,[139] seek righteousness, seek\nmeekness, peradventure ye may hide yourselves in the day of Jehovah\u2019s\nwrath._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[100] Josiah, born _c._ 648, succeeded _c._ 639, was about eighteen in\n630, and then appears to have begun his reforms.\n\n[101] See above, pp. 40 f., n. 85.\n\n[102] Jer. i. 5.\n\n[103] See G. B. Gray, _Hebrew Proper Names_.\n\n[104] Josiah.\n\n[105] It is not usual in the O.T. to carry a man\u2019s genealogy beyond his\ngrandfather, except for some special purpose, or in order to include\nsome ancestor of note. Also the name Hezekiah is very rare apart from\nthe king. The number of names compounded with Jah or Jehovah is another\nproof that the line is a royal one. The omission of the phrase _king\nof Judah_ after Hezekiah\u2019s name proves nothing; it may have been of\npurpose because the phrase has to occur immediately again.\n\n[106] It was not till 652 that a league was made between the Palestine\nprinces and Psamtik I. against Assyria. This certainly would have been\nthe most natural year for a child to be named Kushi. But that would set\nthe birth of Zephaniah as late as 632, and his prophecy towards the end\nof Josiah\u2019s reign, which we have seen to be improbable on other grounds.\n\n[107] Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 25, 29, xxxvii. 3, lii. 24 ff.; 2 Kings xxv.\n18. The analogous Ph\u0153nician name \u05e6\u05e4\u05e0\u05d1\u05e2\u05dc, Saphan-ba\u2019al = \u201cBaal protects\nor hides,\u201d is found in No. 207 of the Ph\u0153nician inscriptions in the\n_Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum_.\n\n[108] Chap. i. 15. With the above paragraph cf. Robertson Smith,\n_Encyc. Brit._, art. \u201cZephaniah.\u201d\n\n[109] Chap. i. 14_b_.\n\n[110] In fact this forms one difficulty about the conclusion which we\nhave reached as to the date. We saw that one reason against putting\nthe Book of Zephaniah after the great Reforms of 621 was that it\nbetrayed no sign of their effects. But it might justly be answered\nthat, if Zephaniah prophesied before 621, his book ought to betray some\nsign of the approach of reform. Still the explanation given above is\nsatisfactory.\n\n[111] Chap. i. 12.\n\n[112] So _wine upon the lees_ is a generous wine according to\nIsa. xxv. 6.\n\n[113] Jer. xlviii. 11.\n\n[114] The text reads _the ruins_ (\u05de\u05b7\u05db\u05b0\u05e9\u05b5\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea, unless we prefer with\nWellhausen \u200e\u05de\u05b4\u05db\u05b0\u05e9\u05b9\u05c1\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd, _the stumbling-blocks_, i.e. _idols_) _with the\nwicked, and I will cut off man_ (LXX. _the lawless_) _from off the face\nof the ground._ Some think the clause partly too redundant, partly too\nspecific, to be original. But suppose we read \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05db\u05b0\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05dc\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 (cf. Mal. ii. 8,\nLam. i. 14 and _passim_: this is more probable than Schwally\u2019s \u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05dc\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9,\n_op. cit._, p. 169), and for \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd the reading which probably the LXX.\nhad before them, \u200e\u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05e8\u05e9\u05e2 (Job xx. 29, xxvii. 13, Prov. xi. 7: cf. \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd\n\u05d1\u05dc\u05d9\u05e2\u05dc Prov. vi. 12) or \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05e2\u05b7\u05d5\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc (cf. iii. 5), we get the rendering\nadopted in the translation above. Some think the whole passage an\nintrusion, yet it is surely probable that the earnest moral spirit of\nZephaniah would aim at the wicked from the very outset of his prophecy.\n\n[115] LXX. _names_, held by some to be the original reading (Schwally,\netc.). In that case the phrase might have some allusion to the\nwell-known promise in Deut., _the place where I shall set My name_.\nThis is more natural than a reference to Hosea ii. 19, which is quoted\nby some.\n\n[116] Some Greek codd. take Baal as fem., others as plur..\n\n[117] So LXX.\n\n[118] Heb. reads _and them who bow themselves, who swear, by Jehovah_.\nSo LXX. B with _and_ before _who swear_. But LXX. A omits _and_. LXX. Q\nomits _them who bow themselves_. Wellhausen keeps the clause with the\nexception of _who swear_, and so reads (to the end of verse) _them who\nbow themselves to Jehovah and swear by Milcom_.\n\n[119] Or Molech = king. LXX. _by their king_. Other Greek versions:\nMoloch and Melchom. Vulg. Melchom.\n\n[120] LXX. _His._\n\n[121] So LXX. Heb. _sons_.\n\n[122] Is this some superstitious rite of the idol-worshippers as\ndescribed in the case of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 5? Or is it a phrase for\nbreaking into a house, and so parallel to the second clause of the\nverse? Most interpreters prefer the latter. The idolatrous rites have\nbeen left behind. Schwally suggests the original order may have been:\n_princes and sons of the king, who fill their lord\u2019s house full of\nviolence and deceit; and I will visit upon every one that leapeth over\nthe threshold on that day, and upon all that wear foreign raiment_.\n\n[123] The _Second_ or New Town: cf. 2 Kings xxii. 14, 2 Chron. xxxiv.\n22, which state that the prophetess Huldah lived there. Cf. Neh. iii.\n9, 12, xi. 9.\n\n[124] The hollow probably between the western and eastern hills, or the\nupper part of the Tyrop\u0153an (Orelli).\n\n[125] Heb. _people of Canaan_.\n\n[126]\u200e \u05e0\u05d8\u05d9\u05dc, found only here, from \u05e0\u05d8\u05dc, to lift up, and in Isa. xl.\n15 to weigh. Still it may have a wider meaning, _all they that carry\nmoney_ (Davidson).\n\n[127] See above, p. 52.\n\n[128] The Hebrew text and versions here add: _And they shall build\nhouses and not inhabit_ (Greek _in them_), _and plant vineyards and not\ndrink the wine thereof._ But the phrase is a common one (Deut. xxviii.\n30; Amos v. 11: cf. Micah vi. 15), and while likely to have been\ninserted by a later hand, is here superfluous, and mars the firmness\nand edge of Zephaniah\u2019s threat.\n\n[129] For \u05de\u05d4\u05e8 Wellhausen reads \u05de\u05de\u05d4\u05e8, pt. Pi; but \u05de\u05d4\u05e8 may be a verbal\nadj.; compare the phrase \u05de\u05d4\u05e8 \u05e9\u05dc\u05dc, Isa. viii. 1.\n\n[130] Dies Ir\u00e6, Dies Illa!\n\n[131] Heb. sho\u2019ah u-mesho\u2019ah. Lit. ruin (or devastation) and\ndestruction.\n\n[132] Some take this first clause of ver. 18 as a gloss. See Schwally\n_in loco_.\n\n[133] Read \u05d0\u05e3 for \u05d0\u05da. So LXX., Syr., Wellhausen, Schwally.\n\n[134] In vv. 1-3 of chap. ii., wrongly separated from chap. i.: see\nDavidson.\n\n[135] Heb. \u05d4\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc \u05d5\u05b8\u05e7\u05e9\u05bc\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc. A.V. _Gather yourselves together, yea,\ngather together_ (\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05e9\u05b5\u05c1\u05e9\u05c1 is _to gather straw or sticks_\u2014cf. Arab.\n_\u1e33ash_, to sweep up\u2014and Nithp. of the Aram. is to assemble). Orelli:\n_Crowd and crouch down_. Ewald compares Aram. _\u1e33ash_, late Heb. \u05e7\u05b0\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05e9\u05c1\u200e,\n_to grow old_, which he believes originally meant _to be\nwithered, grey_. Budde suggests \u05d1\u05e9\u05d5 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d1\u05e9\u05e9\u05d5, but, as Davidson remarks,\nit is not easy to see how this, if once extant, was altered to the\npresent reading.\n\n[136]\u200e \u05e0\u05b4\u05db\u05b0\u05e1\u05b8\u05e3 is usually thought to have as its root meaning _to be\npale_ or _colourless_, _i.e._ either white or black (_Journal of\nPhil._, 14, 125), whence \u05db\u05b6\u05bc\u05e1\u05b6\u05e3, _silver_ or _the pale metal_: hence in\nthe Qal to long for, Job xiv. 15, Ps. xvii. 12; so Ni, Gen. xxxi. 30,\nPs. lxxxiv. 3; and here _to be ashamed_. But the derivation of the name\nfor silver is quite imaginary, and the colour of shame is red rather\nthan white: cf. the mod. Arab. saying, \u201cThey are a people that cannot\nblush; they have no blood in their faces,\u201d _i.e._ shameless. Indeed\nSchwally says (_in loco_), \u201cDie Bedeutung fahl, blass ist\nunerweislich.\u201d Hence (in spite of the meanings of the Aram. \u05db\u05e1\u05e3 both to\nlose colour and to be ashamed) a derivation for the Hebrew is more\nprobably to be found in the root _kasaf_, to cut off. The Arab. \u06a9\ufeb4\u0641,\nwhich in the classic tongue means to cut a thread or eclipse the sun,\nis in colloquial Arabic to give a rebuff, refuse a favour, disappoint,\nshame. In the forms _inkasaf_ and _itkasaf_ it means to receive a\nrebuff, be disappointed, then shy or timid, and _kas\u00fbf_ means shame,\nshyness (as well as eclipse of the sun). See Spiro\u2019s _Arabic-English\nVocabulary_. In Ps. lxxxiv. \u05e0\u05db\u05e1\u05e3 is evidently used of unsatisfied\nlonging (but see Cheyne), which is also the proper meaning of the\nparallel \u05db\u05dc\u05d4 (cf. other passages where \u05db\u05dc\u05d4 is used of still unfulfilled\nor rebuffed hopes: Job xix. 27, Ps. lxix. 4, cxix. 81, cxliii. 7). So\nin Ps. xvii. 4 \u05db\u05e1\u05e3 is used of a lion who is longing for, _i.e._ still\ndisappointed in, his prey, and so in Job xiv. 15.\n\n[137] LXX. \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f51\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f61\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 (here in error reading \u05e0\u05e5 for \u05de\u05e5)\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c6\u2019 \u1f51\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f40\u03c1\u03b3\u1f74\u03bd \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 (last clause\nomitted by \u05d0^{c.b}). According to this the Hebrew text, which is\nobviously disarranged, may be restored to \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05d8\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05dd \u05dc\u05d0\u05b9\u05be\u05ea\u05b4\u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05bc \u05db\u05b7\u05de\u05b9\u05bc\u05e5 \u05e2\u05b9\u05d1\u05b5\u05e8 \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05d8\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05dd\n\u05dc\u05d0\u05b9\u05be\u05d9\u05b8\u05d1\u05b9\u05d0 \u05e2\u05b2\u05dc\u05b5\u05d9\u05db\u05b6\u05dd \u05d7\u05b2\u05e8\u05d5\u05b9\u05df \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5.\n\n[138] This clause Wellhausen deletes. Cf. Hexaplar Syriac translation.\n\n[139] LXX. take this also as imperative, _do judgment_, and so\nco-ordinate to the other clauses.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV\n\n _NINIVE DELENDA_\n\n ZEPHANIAH ii. 4-15\n\n\nThere now come a series of oracles on foreign nations, connected with\nthe previous prophecy by the conjunction _for_, and detailing the\nworldwide judgment which it had proclaimed. But though dated from the\nsame period as that prophecy, _circa_ 626, these oracles are best\ntreated by themselves.[140]\n\nThese oracles originally formed one passage in the well-known Qinah\nor elegiac measure; but this has suffered sadly both by dilapidation\nand rebuilding. How mangled the text is may be seen especially from\nvv. 6 and 14, where the Greek gives us some help in restoring it. The\nverses (8-11) upon Moab and Ammon cannot be reduced to the metre which\nboth precedes and follows them. Probably, therefore, they are a later\naddition: nor did Moab and Ammon lie upon the way of the Scythians, who\nare presumably the invaders pictured by the prophet.[141]\n\nThe poem begins with Philistia and the sea-coast, the very path of the\nScythian raid.[142] Evidently the latter is imminent, the Philistine\ncities are shortly to be taken and the whole land reduced to grass.\nAcross the emptied strip the long hope of Israel springs sea-ward;\nbut\u2014mark!\u2014not yet with a vision of the isles beyond. The prophet is\nsatisfied with reaching the edge of the Promised Land: _by the sea\nshall they feed_[143] their flocks.\n\n _For Gaza forsaken shall be,\n Ash\u1e33\u2019l\u00f4n a desert.\n Ashdod\u2014by noon shall they rout her,\n And E\u1e33ron be torn up!_[144]\n\n _Ah! woe, dwellers of the sea-shore,\n Folk of Ker\u0113thim.\n The word of Jehovah against thee, K\u0115na\u2018an,[145]\n Land of the Philistines!_\n\n _And I destroy thee to the last inhabitant,[146]\n And Kereth shall become shepherds\u2019 cots,[147]\n And folds for flocks.\n And the coast[148] for the remnant of Judah\u2019s house;\n By the sea[149] shall they feed.\n In Ash\u1e33elon\u2019s houses at even shall they couch;\n . . . . . .[150]\n For Jehovah their God shall visit them,\n And turn their captivity.[151]_\n\nThere comes now an oracle upon Moab and Ammon (vv. 8-11). As already\nsaid, it is not in the elegiac measure which precedes and follows it,\nwhile other features cast a doubt upon its authenticity. Like other\noracles on the same peoples, this denounces the loud-mouthed arrogance\nof the sons of Moab and Ammon.\n\n_I have heard[152] the reviling of Moab and the insults of the sons\nof Ammon, who have reviled My people and vaunted themselves upon\ntheir[153] border. Wherefore as I live, saith Jehovah of Hosts, God of\nIsrael, Moab shall become as Sodom, and Ammon\u2019s sons as Gomorrah\u2014the\npossession[154] of nettles, and saltpits,[155] and a desolation for\never; the remnant of My people shall spoil them, and the rest of My\nnation possess them. This to them for their arrogance, because they\nreviled, and vaunted themselves against, the people of[156] Jehovah of\nHosts. Jehovah showeth Himself terrible[157] against them, for He hath\nmade lean[158] all gods of earth, that all the coasts of the nations\nmay worship Him, every man from his own place.[159]_\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe next oracle is a very short one (ver. 12) upon Egypt, which after\nits long subjection to Ethiopic dynasties is called, not Mi\u1e63raim, but\nKush, or Ethiopia. The verse follows on naturally to ver. 7, but is not\nreducible to the elegiac measure.\n\n_Also ye, O Kushites, are the slain of My sword.[160]_\n\nThe elegiac measure is now renewed[161] in an oracle against Assyria,\nthe climax and front of heathendom (vv. 13-15). It must have been\nwritten before 608: there is no reason to doubt that it is Zephaniah\u2019s.\n\n _And may He stretch out His hand against the North,\n And destroy Asshur;\n And may He turn Niniveh to desolation,\n Dry as the desert.\n And herds shall couch in her midst.\n Every beast of....[162]\n Yea, pelican and bittern[163] shall roost on the capitals;\n The owl shall hoot in the window,\n The raven on the doorstep._\n\n . . . . .[164]\n\n _Such is the City, the Jubilant,\n She that sitteth at ease,\n She that saith in her heart, I am\n And there is none else!\n How hath she become desolation!\n A lair of beasts.\n Every one passing by her hisses,\n Shakes his hand._\n\nThe essence of these oracles is their clear confidence in the\nfall of Niniveh. From 652, when Egypt revolted from Assyria, and,\nAssurbanipal notwithstanding, began to push northward, men must\nhave felt, throughout all Western Asia, that the great empire upon\nthe Tigris was beginning to totter. This feeling was strengthened\nby the Scythian invasion, and after 625 it became a moral certainty\nthat Niniveh would fall[165]\u2014which happened in 607\u20146. These are the\nfeelings, 625 to 608, which Zephaniah\u2019s oracles reflect. We can hardly\nover-estimate what they meant. Not a man was then alive who had ever\nknown anything else than the greatness and the glory of Assyria. It was\ntwo hundred and thirty years since Israel first felt the weight of her\narms.[166] It was more than a hundred since her hosts had swept through\nPalestine,[167] and for at least fifty her supremacy had been accepted\nby Judah. Now the colossus began to totter. As she had menaced, so she\nwas menaced. The ruins with which for nigh three centuries she had\nstrewn Western Asia\u2014to these were to be reduced her own impregnable and\nancient glory. It was the close of an epoch.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[140] See above, pp. 41 ff.\n\n[141] Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the\nChaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because\nhe pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion\nof Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after\nNiniveh had fallen.\n\n[142] According to Herodotus.\n\n[143] Ver. 7, LXX.\n\n[144] The measure, as said above, is elegiac: alternate lines long\nwith a rising, and short with a falling, cadence. There is a play\nupon the names, at least on the first and last\u2014\u201cGazzah\u201d or \u201c\u2018Azzah\n\u2018Azubah\u201d\u2014which in English we might reproduce by the use of Spenser\u2019s\nword for \u201cdreary\u201d: _For Gaza ghastful shall be._ \u201c\u2018E\u1e33ron te\u2019a\u1e33er.\u201d\nLXX. \u1f08\u03ba\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6\u03c9\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u1f76 (B), \u1f10\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 (A). In the second line\nwe have a slighter assonance, \u2018Ashk\u0115l\u014dn lish\u0115mamah. In the third the\nverb is \u05d9\u05b0\u05d2\u05b8\u05e8\u05b0\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc\u05d4\u05b8; Bacher (_Z.A.T.W._, 1891, 185 ff.) points out\nthat \u05d2\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8\u05b7\u05e9\u05c1 is not used of cities, but of their populations or of\nindividual men, and suggests (from Abulwalid) \u05d9\u05d9\u05e8\u05e9\u05d5\u05d4, _shall possess\nher_, as \u201ca plausible emendation.\u201d Schwally (_ibid._, 260) prefers to\nalter to \u05d9\u05b0\u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05e8\u05b0\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc\u05d4\u05b8, with the remark that this is not only a good\nparallel to \u05ea\u05e2\u05e7\u05e8, but suits the LXX. \u1f10\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\u2014On the expression _by\nnoon_ see Davidson, _N. H. and Z._, Appendix, Note 2, where he quotes a\nparallel expression, in the Senjerli inscription, of Asarhaddon: that\nhe took Memphis by midday or in half a day (Schrader). This suits the\nuse of the phrase in Jer. xv. 8, where it is parallel to _suddenly_.\n\n[145] Canaan omitted by Wellhausen, who reads \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05da for \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05db\u05dd. But as\nthe metre requires a larger number of syllables in the first line\nof each couplet than in the second, K\u0115na\u2019an should probably remain.\nThe difficulty is the use of Canaan as synonymous with _Land of the\nPhilistines_. Nowhere else in the Old Testament is it expressly applied\nto the coast south of Carmel, though it is so used in the Egyptian\ninscriptions, and even in the Old Testament in a sense which covers\nthis as well as other lowlying parts of Palestine.\n\n[146] An odd long line, either the remains of two, or perhaps we should\ntake the two previous lines as one, omitting Canaan.\n\n[147] So LXX.: Hebrew text _and the sea-coast shall become dwellings,\ncots_ (\u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05e8\u05b9\u05ea) _of shepherds_. But the pointing and meaning of \u05db\u05e8\u05ea are\nboth conjectural, and the _sea-coast_ has probably fallen by mistake\ninto this verse from the next. On Kereth and Kerethim as names for\nPhilistia and the Philistines see _Hist. Geog._, p. 171.\n\n[148] LXX. adds _of the sea_. So Wellhausen, but unnecessarily and\nimprobably for phonetic reasons, as sea has to be read in the next line.\n\n[149] So Wellhausen, reading for \u05e2\u05b7\u05dc\u05be\u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05b8\u05bc\u05dd \u05e2\u05b2\u05dc\u05d9\u05d4\u05b6\u05dd.\n\n[150] Some words must have fallen out, for _first_ a short line is\nrequired here by the metre, and _second_ the LXX. have some additional\nwords, which, however, give us no help to what the lost line was: \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u1f31\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f38\u03bf\u03cd\u03b4\u03b1.\n\n[151] As stated above, there is no conclusive reason against the\npre-exilic date of this expression.\n\n[152] Cf. Isa. xvi. 6.\n\n[153] LXX. _My._\n\n[154] Doubtful word, not occurring elsewhere.\n\n[155] Heb. singular.\n\n[156] LXX. omits _the people of_.\n\n[157] LXX. _maketh Himself manifest_, \u05e0\u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 for \u05e0\u05d5\u05e8\u05d0.\n\n[158] \u1f05\u03c0\u03b1\u03be \u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd. The passive of the verb means _to grow lean_\n(Isa. xvii. 4).\n\n[159]\u200e \u05de\u05e7\u05d5\u05dd has probably here the sense which it has in a few other\npassages of the Old Testament, and in Arabic, of _sacred place_.\n\nMany will share Schwally\u2019s doubts (p. 192) about the authenticity of\nver. 11; nor, as Wellhausen points out, does its prediction of the\nconversion of the heathen agree with ver. 12, which devotes them to\ndestruction. Ver. 12 follows naturally on to ver. 7.\n\n[160] Wellhausen reads _His sword_, to agree with the next verse.\nPerhaps \u05d7\u05e8\u05d1\u05d9 is an abbreviation for \u05d7\u05e8\u05d1 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4.\n\n[161] See Budde, _Z.A.T.W._, 1882, 25.\n\n[162] Heb. reads _a nation_, and Wellhausen translates _ein buntes\nGemisch von Volk_. LXX. _beasts of the earth_.\n\n[163]\u200e \u05e7\u05d0\u05ea, a water-bird according to Deut. xiv. 17, Lev. xi. 18, mostly\ntaken as _pelican_; so R.V. A.V. _cormorant_. \u05e7\u05b4\u05e4\u05b9\u05bc\u05d3 has usually been\ntaken from \u05e7\u05e4\u05d3, to draw together, therefore _hedgehog_ or _porcupine_.\nBut the other animals mentioned here are birds, and it is birds\nwhich would naturally roost on capitals. Therefore _bittern_ is the\nbetter rendering (Hitzig, Cheyne). The name is onomatop\u0153ic. Cf. Eng.\nbutter-dump. LXX. translates _chameleons and hedgehogs_.\n\n[164] Heb.: _a voice shall sing in the window, desolation on the\nthreshold, for He shall uncover the cedar-work_. LXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1 \u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\n\u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c1\u03cd\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2, \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c5\u03bb\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2, \u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\n\u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2: Wild beasts shall sound in her excavations, ravens\nin her porches, because (the) cedar is her height. For \u05e7\u05d5\u05dc, _voice_,\nWellhausen reads \u05db\u05d5\u05e1, _owl_, and with the LXX. \u05e2\u05e8\u05d1, _raven_, for \u05d7\u05e8\u05d1,\n_desolation_. The last two words are left untranslated above. \u05d0\u05b7\u05e8\u05b0\u05d6\u05b8\u05d4\noccurs only here and is usually taken to mean cedar-work; but it\nmight be pointed _her_ cedar. \u05e2\u05e8\u05d4, _he_, or _one, has stripped the\ncedar-work_.\n\n[165] See above, pp. 17, 18.\n\n[166] At the battle of Karkar, 854.\n\n[167] Under Tiglath-Pileser in 734.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V\n\n _SO AS BY FIRE_\n\n Zephaniah iii.\n\n\nThe third chapter of the Book of Zephaniah consists[168] of two\nsections, of which only the first, vv. 1-13, is a genuine work of the\nprophet; while the second, vv. 14-20, is a later epilogue such as we\nfound added to the genuine prophecies of Amos. It is written in the\nlarge hope and brilliant temper of the Second Isaiah, saying no word of\nJudah\u2019s sin or judgment, but predicting her triumphant deliverance out\nof all her afflictions.\n\nIn a second address to his City (vv. 1-13) Zephaniah strikes the same\nnotes as he did in his first. He spares the king, but denounces the\nruling and teaching classes. Jerusalem\u2019s princes are lions, her judges\nwolves, her prophets braggarts, her priests pervert the law, her wicked\nhave no shame. He repeats the proclamation of a universal doom. But\nthe time is perhaps later. Judah has disregarded the many threats. She\nwill not accept the Lord\u2019s discipline; and while in chap. i.\u2014ii. 3\nZephaniah had said that the meek and righteous might escape the doom,\nhe now emphatically affirms that all proud and impenitent men shall be\nremoved from Jerusalem, and a humble people be left to her, righteous\nand secure. There is the same moral earnestness as before, the same\nabsence of all other elements of prophecy than the ethical. Before we\nask the reason and emphasise the beauty of this austere gospel, let us\nsee the exact words of the address. There are the usual marks of poetic\ndiction in it\u2014elliptic phrases, the frequent absence of the definite\narticle, archaic forms and an order of the syntax different from that\nwhich obtains in prose. But the measure is difficult to determine, and\nmust be printed as prose. The echo of the elegiac rhythm in the opening\nis more apparent than real: it is not sustained beyond the first verse.\nVerses 9 and 10 are relegated to a footnote, as very probably an\nintrusion, and disturbance of the argument.\n\n_Woe, rebel and unclean, city of oppression![169] She listens to no\nvoice, she accepts no discipline, in Jehovah she trusts not, nor has\ndrawn near to her God._\n\n _Her princes in her midst are roaring lions; her judges evening\nwolves,[170] they ...[171] not till morning; her prophets are braggarts\nand traitors; her priests have profaned what is holy and done violence\nto the Law.[172] Jehovah is righteous in the midst of her, He does no\nwrong. Morning by morning He brings His judgment to light: He does not\nlet Himself fail[173]\u2014but the wicked man knows no shame. I have cut\noff nations, their turrets are ruined; I have laid waste their broad\nstreets, till no one passes upon them; destroyed are their cities,\nwithout a man, without a dweller.[174] I said, Surely she will fear\nMe, she will accept punishment,[175] and all that I have visited upon\nher[176] shall never vanish from her eyes.[177] But only the more\nzealously have they corrupted all their doings.[178]_\n\n_Wherefore wait ye for Me\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014_wait_ for the day of My\nrising to testify, for \u2019tis My fixed purpose[179] to sweep nations\ntogether, to collect kingdoms, to pour upon them ...[180] all the heat\nof My wrath\u2014yea, with the fire of My jealousy shall the whole earth\nbe consumed.[181]_\n\n_In that day thou shalt not be ashamed[182] of all thy deeds, by which\nthou hast rebelled against Me: for then will I turn out of the midst of\nthee all who exult with that arrogance of thine,[183] and thou wilt not\nagain vaunt thyself upon the Mount of My Holiness. But I will leave in\nthy midst a people humble and poor, and they shall trust in the name of\nJehovah. The Remnant of Israel shall do no evil, and shall not speak\nfalsehood, and no fraud shall be found in their mouth, but they shall\npasture and they shall couch, with none to make them afraid._\n\nSuch is the simple and austere gospel of Zephaniah. It is not to be\noverlooked amid the lavish and gorgeous promises which other prophets\nhave poured around it, and by ourselves, too, it is needed in our often\nunscrupulous enjoyment of the riches of grace that are in Christ Jesus.\nA thorough purgation, the removal of the wicked, the sparing of the\nhonest and the meek; insistence only upon the rudiments of morality and\nreligion; faith in its simplest form of trust in a righteous God, and\ncharacter in its basal elements of meekness and truth,\u2014these and these\nalone survive the judgment. Why does Zephaniah never talk of the Love\nof God, of the Divine Patience, of the Grace that has spared and will\nspare wicked hearts if only it can touch them to penitence? Why has he\nno call to repent, no appeal to the wicked to turn from the evil of\ntheir ways? We have already seen part of the answer. Zephaniah stands\ntoo near to judgment and the last things. Character is fixed, the time\nfor pleading is past; there remains only the separation of bad men\nfrom good. It is the same standpoint (at least ethically) as that of\nChrist\u2019s visions of the Judgment. Perhaps also an austere gospel was\nrequired by the fashionable temper of the day. The generation was loud\nand arrogant; it gilded the future to excess, and knew no shame.[184]\nThe true prophet was forced to reticence; he must make his age feel the\ndesperate earnestness of life, and that salvation is by fire. For the\ngorgeous future of its unsanctified hopes he must give it this severe,\nalmost mean, picture of a poor and humble folk, hardly saved but at\nlast at peace.\n\nThe permanent value of such a message is proved by the thirst which\nwe feel even to-day for the clear, cold water of its simple promises.\nWhere a glaring optimism prevails, and the future is preached with a\nloud assurance, where many find their only religious enthusiasm in the\nresurrection of medi\u00e6val ritual or the singing of stirring and gorgeous\nhymns of second-hand imagery, how needful to be recalled to the\nearnestness and severity of life, to the simplicity of the conditions\nof salvation, and to their ethical, not emotional, character! Where\nsensationalism has so invaded religion, how good to hear the sober\ninsistence upon God\u2019s daily commonplaces\u2014_morning by morning He\nbringeth forth His judgment to light_\u2014and to know that the acceptance\nof discipline is what prevails with Him. Where national reform is\nvaunted and the progress of education, how well to go back to a prophet\nwho ignored all the great reforms of his day that he might impress\nhis people with the indispensableness of humility and faith. Where\nChurches have such large ambitions for themselves, how necessary to\nhear that the future is destined for _a poor folk_, the meek and the\nhonest. Where men boast that their religion\u2014Bible, Creed or Church\u2014has\nundertaken to save them, _vaunting themselves on the Mount of My\nHoliness_, how needful to hear salvation placed upon character and a\nvery simple trust in God.\n\nBut, on the other hand, is any one in despair at the darkness and\ncruelty of this life, let him hear how Zephaniah proclaims that, though\nall else be fraud, _the Lord is righteous in the midst_ of us, _He doth\nnot let Himself fail_, that the resigned heart and the humble, the just\nand the pure heart, is imperishable, and in the end there is at least\npeace.\n\n\n EPILOGUE.\n\n VERSES 14-20.\n\nZephaniah\u2019s prophecy was fulfilled. The Day of the Lord came, and\nthe people met their judgment. The Remnant survived\u2014_a folk poor and\nhumble_. To them, in the new estate and temper of their life, came a\nnew song from God\u2014perhaps it was nearly a hundred years after Zephaniah\nhad spoken\u2014and they added it to his prophecies. It came in with\nwonderful fitness, for it was the song of the redeemed, whom he had\nforeseen, and it tuned his book, severe and simple, to the full harmony\nof prophecy, so that his book might take a place in the great choir of\nIsrael\u2014the diapason of that full salvation which no one man, but only\nthe experience of centuries, could achieve.\n\n_Sing out, O daughter of Zion! shout aloud, O Israel! Rejoice and be\njubilant with all thy[185] heart, daughter of Jerusalem! Jehovah hath\nset aside thy judgments,[186] He hath turned thy foes. King of Israel,\nJehovah is in thy midst; thou shalt not see[187] evil any more._\n\n_In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not. O Zion, let not\nthy hands droop! Jehovah, thy God, in the midst of thee is mighty;[188]\nHe will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will make new[189]\nHis love, He will exult over thee with singing._\n\n_The scattered of thy congregation[190] have I gathered\u2014thine[191] are\nthey, ...[192] reproach upon her. Behold, I am about to do all for thy\nsake at that time,[193] and I will rescue the lame and the outcast will\nI bring in,[194] and I will make them for renown and fame whose shame\nis in the whole earth.[195] In that time I will bring you in,[196]\neven in the time that I gather you.[197] For I will set you for fame\nand renown among all the peoples of the earth, when I turn again your\ncaptivity before your eyes, saith Jehovah.[198]_\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[168] See above, pp. 43-45.\n\n[169] Heb. _the city the oppressor_. The two participles in the first\nclause are not predicates to the noun and adjective of the second\n(Schwally), but vocatives, though without the article, after \u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05d9.\n\n[170] LXX. _wolves of Arabia_.\n\n[171] The verb left untranslated, \u05d2\u05e8\u05de\u05d5, is quite uncertain in meaning.\n\u05d2\u05e8\u05dd is a root common to the Semitic languages and seems to mean\noriginally _to cut off_, while the noun \u05d2\u05e8\u05dd is _a bone_. In Num. xxiv.\n8 the Piel of the verb used with another word for bone means _to gnaw_,\n_munch_. (The only other passage where it is used, Ezek. xxiii. 34, is\ncorrupt.) So some take it here: _they do not gnaw bones till morning_,\n_i.e._ devour all at once; but this is awkward, and Schwally (198)\nhas proposed to omit the negative, _they do gnaw bones till morning_,\nyet in that case surely the impf. and not the perf. tense would have\nbeen used. The LXX. render _they do not leave over_, and it has been\nattempted, though inconclusively, to derive this meaning from that of\n_cutting off_, i.e. _laying aside_ (the Arabic Form II. means, however,\n_to leave behind_). Another line of meaning perhaps promises more. In\nAram. the verb means _to be the cause of anything, to bring about_,\nand perhaps contains the idea of _deciding_ (Levy _sub voce_ compares\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9, _cerno_); in Arab. it means, among other things, _to commit\na crime, be guilty_, but in mod. Arabic _to fine_. Now it is to be\nnoticed that here the expression is used of _judges_, and it may be\nthere is an intentional play upon the double possibility of meaning in\nthe root.\n\n[172] Ezek. xxii. 26: _Her priests have done violence to My Law and\nhave profaned My holy things; they have put no difference between the\nholy and profane, between the clean and the unclean._ Cf. Jer. ii. 8.\n\n[173] Schwally by altering the accents: _morning by morning He giveth\nforth His judgment: no day does He fail_.\n\n[174] On this ver. 6 see above, p. 44. It is doubtful.\n\n[175] Or _discipline_.\n\n[176] Wellhausen: _that which I have commanded her_. Cf. Job xxxvi. 23;\n2 Chron. xxxvi. 23; Ezra i. 2.\n\n[177] So LXX., reading \u05de\u05b5\u05e2\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b6\u05d9\u05d4\u05b8 for the Heb. \u05de\u05b0\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d4\u05bc, _her\ndwelling_.\n\n[178] A frequent phrase of Jeremiah\u2019s.\n\n[179]\u200e \u05de\u05e9\u05e4\u05d8\u05d9, decree, ordinance, decision.\n\n[180] Heb. _My anger._ LXX. omits.\n\n[181] That is to say, the prophet returns to that general judgment\nof the whole earth, with which in his first discourse he had already\nthreatened Judah. He threatens her with it again in this eighth verse,\nbecause, as he has said in the preceding ones, all other warnings have\nfailed. The eighth verse therefore follows naturally upon the seventh,\njust as naturally as in Amos iv. ver. 12, introduced by the same \u05dc\u05b5\u05b8\u05db\u05df\nas here, follows its predecessors. The next two verses of the text,\nhowever, describe an opposite result: instead of the destruction of the\nheathen, they picture their conversion, and it is only in the eleventh\nverse that we return to the main subject of the passage, Judah herself,\nwho is represented (in harmony with the close of Zephaniah\u2019s first\ndiscourse) as reduced to a righteous and pious remnant. Vv. 9 and 10\nare therefore obviously a later insertion, and we pass to the eleventh\nverse. Vv. 9 and 10: _For then_ (this has no meaning after ver. 8)\n_will I give to the peoples a pure lip_ (elliptic phrase: _turn to the\npeoples a pure lip_\u2014i.e. _turn their_ evil lip into _a pure lip_: pure\n= _picked out_, _select_, _excellent_, cf. Isa. xlix. 2), _that they\nmay all of them call upon the name of the Lord, that they may serve\nHim with one consent_ (Heb. _shoulder_, LXX. _yoke_). _From beyond\nthe rivers of Ethiopia_\u2014there follows a very obscure phrase, \u05e2\u05b2\u05ea\u05b8\u05e8\u05b7\u05d9\n\u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05ea\u05be\u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e6\u05b7\u05d9, _suppliants (?) of the daughter of My dispersed_, but\nEwald _of the daughter of Phut\u2014they shall bring Mine offering_.\n\n[182] Wellhausen _despair_.\n\n[183] Heb. _the jubilant ones of thine arrogance_.\n\n[184] See vv. 4, 5, 11.\n\n[185] Heb. _the_.\n\n[186]\u200e \u05de\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05d8\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05da\u05b0. But Wellhausen reads \u05de\u05b0\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05b9\u05e4\u05b0\u05d8\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05da\u05b0, thine\nadversaries: cf. Job ix. 15.\n\n[187] Reading \u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05e8\u05b0\u05d0\u05b4\u05d9 (with LXX., Wellhausen and Schwally) for\n\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b4\u05d9 of the Hebrew text, _fear_.\n\n[188] Lit. _hero_, _mighty man_.\n\n[189] Heb. _will be silent in_, \u05d9\u05b7\u05d7\u05b2\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1, but not in harmony with the\nnext clause. LXX. and Syr. render _will make new_, which translates\n\u05d9\u05b7\u05d7\u05b2\u05d3\u05b4\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1, a form that does not elsewhere occur, though that is no\nobjection to finding it in Zephaniah, or \u05d9\u05b0\u05d7\u05b7\u05d3\u05b5\u05bc\u05e9\u05c1. Hitzig: _He makes\nnew things in His love_. Buhl: _He renews His love_. Schwally suggests\n\u05d9\u05d7\u05d3\u05d4, _He rejoices in His love_.\n\n[190] LXX. _In the days of thy festival_, which it takes with the\nprevious verse. The Heb. construction is ungrammatical, though not\nunprecedented\u2014the construct state before a preposition. Besides \u05e0\u05d5\u05d2\u05d9 is\nobscure in meaning. It is a Ni. pt. for \u05e0\u05d5\u05d2\u05d4 from \u05d9\u05d2\u05d4, _to be sad_: cf.\nthe Pi. in Lam. iii. 33. But the Hiphil \u05d4\u05d5\u05d2\u05d4 in 2 Sam. xx. 13, followed\n(as here) by \u05de\u05df, means _to thrust away from_, and that is probably the\nsense here.\n\n[191] LXX. _thine oppressed_ in acc. governed by the preceding verb,\nwhich in LXX. begins the verse.\n\n[192] The Heb., \u05de\u05b7\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05d0\u05b5\u05ea, _burden of_, is unintelligible. Wellhausen\nproposes \u05de\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05d0\u05b5\u05ea \u05e2\u05b2\u05dc\u05b5\u05d9\u05d4\u05b6.\n\n[193] This rendering is only a venture in the almost impossible task of\nrestoring the text of the clause. As it stands the Heb. runs, _Behold,\nI am about to do_, or _deal, with thine oppressors_ (which Hitzig and\nEwald accept). Schwally points \u05de\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05e0\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9\u05b4\u05da\u05b0 (active) as a passive, \u05de\u05b0\u05e2\u05bb\u05e0\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9\u05b4\u05da\u05b0,\n_thine oppressed_. LXX. has \u1f30\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a \u1f10\u03b3\u1f7c \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u1ff6 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03bf\u1f76 \u1f15\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd\n\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6, _i.e._ it read \u05d0\u05b4\u05ea\u05b5\u05bc\u05da\u05b0 \u05dc\u05b0\u05de\u05b7\u05e2\u05b2\u05e0\u05b5\u05da\u05b0. Following its suggestion we\nmight read \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05db\u05b9\u05bc\u05dc \u05dc\u05b0\u05de\u05b7\u05e2\u05b2\u05e0\u05b5\u05da\u05b0, and so get the above translation.\n\n[194] Micah iv. 6.\n\n[195] This rendering (Ewald\u2019s) is doubtful. The verse concludes with\n_in the whole earth their shame_. But \u05d1\u05b8\u05bc\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc\u05dd may be a gloss. LXX.\ntake it as a verb with the next verse.\n\n[196] LXX. _do good to you_; perhaps \u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05d1 for \u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d0.\n\n[197] So Heb. literally, but the construction is very awkward. Perhaps\nwe should read _in that time I will gather you_.\n\n[198] _Before your eyes_, _i.e._ in your lifetime. It is doubtful\nwhether ver. 20 is original to the passage. For it is simply a\nvariation on ver. 19, and it has more than one impossible reading: see\nprevious note, and for \u05e9\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea\u05d9\u05db\u05dd read \u05e9\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea\u05db\u05dd.\n\n\n\n\n _NAHUM_\n\n\n\n\n _Woe to the City of Blood,\n All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!_\n\n _Hark the whip,\n And the rumbling of wheels!\n Horses at the gallop,\n And the rattling dance of the chariot!\n Cavalry at the charge,\n Flash of sabres, and lightning of lances!_\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI\n\n _THE BOOK OF NAHUM_\n\n\nThe Book of Nahum consists of a double title and three odes. The title\nruns _Oracle of Niniveh: Book of the Vision of Nahum the El\u1e33\u00f4shite_.\nThe three odes, eager and passionate pieces, are all of them apparently\nvibrant to the impending fall of Assyria. The first, chap. i. with the\npossible inclusion of chap. ii. 2,[199] is general and theological,\naffirming God\u2019s power of vengeance and the certainty of the overthrow\nof His enemies. The second, chap. ii. with the omission of ver. 2,[200]\nand the third, chap, iii., can hardly be disjoined; they both present a\nvivid picture of the siege, the storm and the spoiling of Niniveh.\n\nThe introductory questions, which title and contents start, are in the\nmain three: 1. The position of El\u1e33\u00f4sh, to which the title assigns the\nprophet; 2. The authenticity of chap. i.; 3. The date of chaps, ii.,\niii.: to which siege of Niniveh do they refer?\n\n\n1. THE POSITION OF EL\u1e32\u00d4SH.\n\nThe title calls Nahum the El\u1e33\u00f4shite\u2014that is, native or citizen of\nEl\u1e33\u00f4sh.[201] Three positions have been claimed for this place, which is\nnot mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.\n\nThe first we take is the modern Al-\u1e32\u00fbsh, a town still flourishing\nabout twenty-four miles to the north of the site of Niniveh,[202]\nwith \u201cno fragments of antiquity\u201d about it, but possessing a \u201csimple\nplaster box,\u201d which Jews, Christians and Mohammedans alike reverence as\nthe tomb of Nahum.[203] There is no evidence that Al-\u1e32\u00fbsh, a name of\nArabic form, is older than the Arab period, while the tradition which\nlocates the tomb there is not found before the sixteenth century of\nour era, but on the contrary Nahum\u2019s grave was pointed out to Benjamin\nof Tudela in 1165 at \u2018Ain Japhata, on the south of Babylon.[204] The\ntradition that the prophet lived and died at Al-\u1e32\u00fbsh is therefore due\nto the similarity of the name to that of Nahum\u2019s El\u1e33\u00f4sh, as well as\nto the fact that Niniveh was the subject of his prophesying.[205] In\nhis book there is no trace of proof for the assertion that Nahum was a\ndescendant of the ten tribes exiled in 721 to the region to the north\nof Al-\u1e32\u00fbsh. He prophesies for Judah alone. Nor does he show any more\nknowledge of Niniveh than her ancient fame must have scattered to the\nlimits of the world.[206] We might as well argue from chap. iii. 8-10\nthat Nahum had visited Thebes of Egypt.\n\nThe second tradition of the position of El\u1e33\u00f4sh is older. In his\ncommentary on Nahum Jerome says that in his day it still existed,\na petty village of Galilee, under the name of Helkesei,[207] or\nElkese, and apparently with an established reputation as the\ntown of Nahum.[208] But the book itself bears no symptom of its\nauthor\u2019s connection with Galilee, and although it was quite possible\nfor a prophet of that period to have lived there, it is not very\nprobable.[209]\n\nA third tradition places El\u1e33\u00f4sh in the south of Judah. A Syriac version\nof the accounts of the prophets, which are ascribed to Epiphanius,[210]\ndescribes Nahum as \u201cof El\u1e33\u00f4sh beyond B\u00eat Gabr\u00ea, of the tribe of\nSimeon\u201d;[211] and it may be noted that Cyril of Alexandria says[212]\nthat Elkese was a village in the country of the Jews. This tradition\nis superior to the first in that there is no apparent motive for its\nfabrication, and to the second in so far as Judah was at the time\nof Nahum a much more probable home for a prophet than Galilee; nor\ndoes the book give any references except such as might be made by a\nJud\u00e6an.[213] No modern place-name, however, can be suggested with any\ncertainty as the echo of El\u1e33\u00f4sh. Umm L\u00e2\u1e33is, which has been proved not\nto be Lachish, contains the same radicals, and some six and a quarter\nmiles east from Beit-Jibrin at the upper end of the Wady es Sur there\nis an ancient well with the name Bir el \u1e32\u00fbs.[214]\n\n\n 2. THE AUTHENTICITY OF CHAP. I.\n\nTill recently no one doubted that the three chapters formed a unity.\n\u201cNahum\u2019s prophecy,\u201d said Kuenen in 1889, \u201cis a whole.\u201d In 1891[215]\nCornill affirmed that no questions of authenticity arose in regard\nto the book; and in 1892 Wellhausen saw in chap. i. an introduction\nleading \u201cin no awkward way to the proper subject of the prophecy.\u201d\n\nMeantime, however, Bickell,[216] discovering what he thought to be\nthe remains of an alphabetic Psalm in chap. i. 1-7, attempted to\nreconstruct throughout chap. i.\u2014ii. 3 twenty-two verses, each beginning\nwith a successive letter of the alphabet. And, following this, Gunkel\nin 1893 produced a more full and plausible reconstruction of the same\nscheme.[217] By radical emendations of the text, by excision of what he\nbelieves to be glosses and by altering the order of many of the verses,\nGunkel seeks to produce twenty-three distichs, twenty of which begin\nwith the successive letters of the alphabet, two are wanting, while in\nthe first three letters of the twenty-third, [\u05e9\u05c1\u05d1\u05d9], he finds very\nprobable the name of the author, Shobai or Shobi.[218] He takes this\node, therefore, to be an eschatological Psalm of the later Judaism,\nwhich from its theological bearing has been thought suitable as an\nintroduction to Nahum\u2019s genuine prophecies.\n\nThe text of chap. i.\u2014ii. 4 has been badly mauled and is clamant for\nreconstruction of some kind. As it lies, there are traces of an\nalphabetical arrangement as far as the beginning of ver. 9,[219]\nand so far Gunkel\u2019s changes are comparatively simple. Many of his\nemendations are in themselves and apart from the alphabetic scheme\ndesirable. They get rid of difficulties and improve the poetry of the\npassage.[220] His reconstruction is always clever and as a whole forms\na wonderfully spirited poem. But to have produced good or poetical\nHebrew is not conclusive proof of having recovered the original, and\nthere are obvious objections to the process. Several of the proposed\nchanges are unnatural in themselves and unsupported by anything\nexcept the exigencies of the scheme; for example, 2_b_ and 3_a_ are\ndismissed as a gloss only because, if they be retained, the _Aleph_\nverse is two bars too long. The gloss, Gunkel thinks, was introduced\nto mitigate the absoluteness of the declaration that Jehovah is a God\nof wrath and vengeance; but this is not obvious and would hardly have\nbeen alleged apart from the needs of the alphabetic scheme. In order\nto find a _Daleth_, it is quite arbitrary to say that the first \u05d0\u05de\u05dc\u05dc\nin 4_b_ is redundant in face of the second, and that a word beginning\nwith _Daleth_ originally filled its place, but was removed because\nit was a rare or difficult word! The re-arrangement of 7 and 8_a_ is\nvery clever, and reads as if it were right; but the next effort, to\nget a verse beginning with _Lamed_, is of the kind by which anything\nmight be proved. These, however, are nothing to the difficulties which\nvv. 9-14 and chap. ii. 1, 3, present to an alphabetic scheme, or to\nthe means which Gunkel takes to surmount them. He has to re-arrange\nthe order of the verses,[221] and of the words within the verses. The\ndistichs beginning with _Nun_ and _\u1e32oph_ are wanting, or at least\nundecipherable. To provide one with initial _Resh_ the interjection\nhas to be removed from the opening of chap. ii. 1, and the verse made\nto begin with \u05e8\u05d2\u05dc\u05d9 and to run thus: _the feet of him that bringeth\ngood news on the mountains; behold him that publisheth peace_. Other\nunlikely changes will be noticed when we come to the translation. Here\nwe may ask the question: if the passage was originally alphabetic, that\nis, furnished with so fixed and easily recognised a frame, why has it\nso fallen to pieces? And again, if it has so fallen to pieces, is it\npossible that it can be restored? The many arbitrarinesses of Gunkel\u2019s\nable essay would seem to imply that it is not. Dr. Davidson says: \u201cEven\nif it should be assumed that an alphabetical poem lurks under chap. i.,\nthe attempt to restore it, just as in Psalm x., can never be more than\nan academic exercise.\u201d\n\nLittle is to be learned from the language. Wellhausen, who makes no\nobjection to the genuineness of the passage, thinks that about ver. 7\nwe begin to catch the familiar dialect of the Psalms. Gunkel finds\na want of originality in the language, with many touches that betray\nconnection not only with the Psalms but with late eschatological\nliterature. But when we take one by one the clauses of chap, i.,\nwe discover very few parallels with the Psalms, which are not at\nthe same time parallels with Jeremiah\u2019s or some earlier writings.\nThat the prophecy is vague, and with much of the air of the later\neschatology about it, is no reason for removing it from an age in\nwhich we have already seen prophecy beginning to show the same\napocalyptic temper.[222] Gunkel denies any reference in ver. 9_b_ to\nthe approaching fall of Niniveh, although that is seen by Kuenen,\nWellhausen, K\u00f6nig and others, and he omits ver. 11_a_, in which most\nread an allusion to Sennacherib.\n\nTherefore, while it is possible that a later poem has been prefixed to\nthe genuine prophecies of Nahum, and the first chapter supplies many\nprovocations to belief in such a theory, this has not been proved,\nand the able essays of proof have much against them. The question is\nopen.[223]\n\n\n 3. THE DATE OF CHAPS. II. AND III.\n\nWe turn now to the date of the Book apart from this prologue. It was\nwritten after a great overthrow of the Egyptian Thebes[224] and when\nthe overthrow of Niniveh was imminent. Now Thebes had been devastated\nby Assurbanipal about 664 (we know of no later overthrow), and Niniveh\nfell finally about 607. Nahum flourished, then, somewhere between 664\nand 607.[225] Some critics, feeling in his description of the fall of\nThebes the force of a recent impression, have placed his prophesying\nimmediately after that, or about 660.[226] But this is too far away\nfrom the fall of Niniveh. In 660 the power of Assyria was unthreatened.\nNor is 652, the year of the revolt of Babylon, Egypt and the princes\nof Palestine, a more likely date.[227] For although in that year\nAssyrian supremacy ebbed from Egypt never to return, Assurbanipal\nquickly reduced Elam, Babylon and all Syria. Nahum, on the other hand,\nrepresents the very centre of the empire as threatened. The land of\nAssyria is apparently already invaded (iii. 13, etc.). Niniveh, if\nnot invested, must immediately be so, and that by forces too great\nfor resistance. Her mixed populace already show signs of breaking up.\nWithin, as without, her doom is sealed. All this implies not only the\nadvance of an enormous force upon Niniveh, but the reduction of her\npeople to the last stage of hopelessness. Now, as we have seen,[228]\nAssyria proper was thrice overrun. The Scythians poured across her\nabout 626, but there is no proof that they threatened Niniveh.[229]\nA little after Assurbanipal\u2019s death in 625, the Medes under King\nPhraortes invaded Assyria, but Phraortes was slain and his son Kyaxares\ncalled away by an invasion of his own country. Herodotus says that\nthis was after he had defeated the Assyrians in a battle and had begun\nthe siege of Niniveh,[230] but before he had succeeded in reducing\nthe city. After a time he subdued or assimilated the Medes, and then\ninvesting Niniveh once more, about 607, in two years he took and\ndestroyed her.\n\nTo which of these two sieges by Kyaxares are we to assign the Book\nof Nahum? Hitzig, Kuenen, Cornill and others incline to the first on\nthe ground that Nahum speaks of the yoke of Assyria as still heavy on\nJudah, though about to be lifted. They argue that by 608, when King\nJosiah had already felt himself free enough to extend his reforms\ninto Northern Israel, and dared to dispute Necho\u2019s passage across\nEsdraelon, the Jews must have been conscious that they had nothing\nmore to fear from Assyria, and Nahum could hardly have written as he\ndoes in i. 13, _I will break his yoke from off thee and burst thy\nbonds in sunder_.[231] But this is not conclusive, for _first_, as we\nhave seen, it is not certain that i. 13 is from Nahum himself, and\n_second_, if it be from himself, he might as well have written it about\n608 as about 625, for he speaks not from the feelings of any single\nyear, but with the impression upon him of the whole epoch of Assyrian\nservitude then drawing to a close. The eve of the later siege as a\ndate for the book is, as Davidson remarks,[232] \u201cwell within the verge\nof possibility,\u201d and some critics prefer it because in their opinion\nNahum\u2019s descriptions thereby acquire greater reality and naturalness.\nBut this is not convincing, for if Kyaxares actually began the siege\nof Niniveh about 625, Nahum\u2019s sense of the imminence of her fall is\nperfectly natural. Wellhausen indeed denies that earlier siege. \u201cApart\nfrom Herodotus,\u201d he says, \u201cit would never have occurred to anybody to\ndoubt that Nahum\u2019s prophecy coincided with the fall of Niniveh.\u201d[233]\nThis is true, for it is to Herodotus alone that we owe the tradition of\nthe earlier siege. But what if we believe Herodotus? In that case, it\nis impossible to come to a decision as between the two sieges. With our\npresent scanty knowledge of both, the prophecy of Nahum suits either\nequally well.[234]\n\nFortunately it is not necessary to come to a decision. Nahum, we\ncannot too often insist, expresses the feelings neither of this nor\nof that decade in the reign of Josiah, but the whole volume of hope,\nwrath and just passion of vengeance which had been gathering for more\nthan a century and which at last broke into exultation when it became\ncertain that Niniveh was falling. That suits the eve of either siege by\nKyaxares. Till we learn a little more about the first siege and how far\nit proceeded towards a successful result, perhaps we ought to prefer\nthe second. And of course those who feel that Nahum writes not in the\nfuture but the present tense of the details of Niniveh\u2019s overthrow,\nmust prefer the second.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThat the form as well as the spirit of the Book of Nahum is poetical is\nproved by the familiar marks of poetic measure\u2014the unusual syntax, the\nfrequent absence of the article and particles, the presence of elliptic\nforms and archaic and sonorous ones. In the two chapters on the siege\nof Niniveh the lines are short and quick, in harmony with the dashing\naction they echo.\n\nAs we have seen, the text of chap. i. is very uncertain. The subject\nof the other two chapters involves the use of a number of technical\nand some foreign terms, of the meaning of most of which we are\nignorant.[235] There are apparently some glosses; here and there the\ntext is obviously disordered. We get the usual help, and find the usual\nfaults, in the Septuagint; they will be noticed in the course of the\ntranslation.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[199] In the English version, but in the Hebrew chap. ii. vv. 1 and\n3; for the Hebrew text divides chap. i. from chap. ii. differently\nfrom the English, which follows the Greek. The Hebrew begins chap. ii.\nwith what in the English and Greek is the fifteenth verse of chap. i.:\n_Behold, upon the mountains_, etc.\n\n[200] In the English text, but in the Hebrew with the omission of vv. 1\nand 3: see previous note.\n\n[201] Other meanings have been suggested, but are impossible.\n\n[202] So it lies on Billerbeck\u2019s map in Delitzsch and Haupt\u2019s _Beitr\u00e4ge\nzur Assyr._, III. Smith\u2019s _Bible Dictionary_ puts it at only 2 m. N. of\nMosul.\n\n[203] Layard, _Niniveh and its Remains_, I. 233, 3rd ed., 1849.\n\n[204] Bohn\u2019s _Early Travels in Palestine_, p. 102.\n\n[205] Just as they show Jonah\u2019s tomb at Niniveh itself.\n\n[206] See above, p. 18.\n\n[207] Just as in Micah\u2019s case Jerome calls his birthplace Moresheth\nby the adjective Morasthi, so with equal carelessness he calls El\u1e33osh\nby the adjective with the article Ha-el\u1e33oshi, the El\u1e33oshite. Jerome\u2019s\nwords are: \u201cQuum Elcese usque hodie in Galilea viculus sit, parvus\nquidem et vix ruinis veterum \u00e6dificiorum indicans vestigia, sed tamen\nnotus Jud\u00e6is et mihi quoque a circumducente monstratus\u201d (in _Prol. ad\nProphetiam Nachumi_). In the _Onomasticon_ Jerome gives the name as\nElcese, Eusebius as \u1f18\u03bb\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03ad, but without defining the position.\n\n[208] This Elkese has been identified, though not conclusively, with\nthe modern El Kauze near Ramieh, some seven miles W. of Tibnin.\n\n[209] Cf. Kuenen, \u00a7 75, n. 5; Davidson, p. 12 (2).\n\nCapernaum, which the Textus Receptus gives as \u039a\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc, but most\nauthorities as \u039a\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc and the Peshitto as Kaphar Nahum, obviously\nmeans Village of Nahum, and both Hitzig and Knobel looked for El\u1e33\u00f4sh in\nit. See _Hist. Geog._, p. 456.\n\nAgainst the Galilean origin of Nahum it is usual to appeal to John vii.\n52: _Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet_; but this\nis not decisive, for Jonah came out of Galilee.\n\n[210] Though perhaps falsely.\n\n[211] This occurs in the Syriac translation of the Old Testament by\nPaul of Tella, 617 A.D., in which the notices of Epiphanius (Bishop\nof Constantia in Cyprus A.D. 367) or Pseudepiphanius are attached to\ntheir respective prophets. It was first communicated to the _Z.D.P.V._,\nI. 122 ff., by Dr. Nestle: cf. _Hist. Geog._, p. 231, n. 1. The\npreviously known readings of the passage were either geographically\nimpossible, as \u201cHe came from Elkesei beyond Jordan, towards Begabar of\nthe tribe of Simeon\u201d (so in Paris edition, 1622, of the works of St.\nEpiphanius, Vol. II., p. 147: cf. Migne, _Patr. Gr._, XLIII. 409); or\nbased on a misreading of the title of the book: \u201cNahum son of Elkesaios\nwas of Jesbe of the tribe of Simeon\u201d; or indefinable: \u201cNahum was of\nElkesem beyond Betabarem of the tribe of Simeon\u201d; these last two from\nrecensions of Epiphanius published in 1855 by Tischendorf (quoted\nby Davidson, p. 13). In the \u03a3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b7\u03c1\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u0399\u0392\u00b4 \u03a0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f38\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u1fe6,\nattributed to Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem, who died 428 of 433\n(Migne, _Patrologia Gr._, XCIII. 1357), it is said that Nahum was \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78\n\u1f19\u03bb\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5\u1f76\u03bd (Helcesin) \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u1f76\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03a3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd; to which has\nbeen added a note from Theophylact, \u1f19\u03bb\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u0390 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f38\u03bf\u03c1\u03b4\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2\n\u0392\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1\u03b2\u03c1\u1f76.\n\n[212] Ad Nahum i. I (Migne, _Patr. Gr._, LXXI. 780): \u039a\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b1\u1f55\u03c4\u03b7\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f38\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2.\n\n[213] The selection Bashan, Carmel and Lebanon (i. 4), does not prove\nnorthern authorship.\n\n[214]\u200e \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc\u05b0\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05e9\u05c1 may be (1) a theophoric name = \u1e32osh is God; and\n\u1e32osh might then be the Edomite deity \u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05e1 whose name is spelt with\na Shin on the Assyrian monuments (Baethgen, _Beitr\u00e4ge z. Semit.\nReligionsgeschichte_, p. 11; Schrader, _K.A.T._\u00b2, pp. 150, 613), and\nwho is probably the same as the Arab deity \u1e32ais (Baethgen, _id._, p.\n108); and this would suit a position in the south of Judah, in which\nregion we find the majority of place-names compounded with \u05d0\u05dc. Or else\n(2) the \u05d0 is prosthetic, as in the place-names \u05d0\u05db\u05d6\u05d9\u05d1 on the Ph\u0153nician\ncoast, \u05d0\u05db\u05e9\u05c1\u05e3 in Southern Canaan, \u05d0\u05e9\u05d3\u05d5\u05d3, etc. In this case we might\nfind its equivalent in the form \u05dc\u05b0\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05e9 (cf. \u05db\u05d6\u05d9\u05d1 \u05d0\u05db\u05d6\u05d9\u05d1); but no such\nform is now extant or recorded at any previous period. The form L\u00e2\u1e33is\nwould not suit. On Bir el \u1e32\u00fbs see Robinson, _B.R._, III., p. 14, and\nGu\u00e9rin, _Jud\u00e9e_, III., p. 341. Bir el \u1e32\u00fbs means Well of the Bow, or,\naccording to Gu\u00e9rin, of the Arch, from ruins that stand by it. The\nposition, _east_ of Beit-Jibrin, is unsuitable; for the early Christian\ntexts quoted in the previous note fix it _beyond_, presumably south or\nsouth-west of Beit-Jibrin, and in the tribe of Simeon. The error \u201ctribe\nof Simeon\u201d does not matter, for the same fathers place Bethzecharias,\nthe alleged birthplace of Habakkuk, there.\n\n[215] _Einleitung_, 1st ed.\n\n[216] Who seems to have owed the hint to a quotation by Delitzsch on\nPsalm ix. from G. Frohnmeyer to the effect that there were traces of\n\u201calphabetic\u201d verses in chap, i., at least in vv. 3-7. See Bickell\u2019s\n_Beitr\u00e4ge zur Semit. Metrik_, Separatabdruck, Wien, 1894.\n\n[217] _Z.A.T.W._, 1893, pp. 223 ff.\n\n[218] Cf. Ezra ii. 42; Neh. vii. 45; 2 Sam. xvii. 27.\n\n[219] Ver. 1 is title; 2 begins with \u05d0; then \u05d1 is found in \u05d1\u05e1\u05d5\u05e4\u05d4,\u200e 3_b_;\n\u05d2 in \u05d2\u05d5\u05e2\u05e8, ver. 4; \u05d3 is wanting\u2014Bickell proposes to substitute a\nNew-Hebrew word \u05d3\u05e6\u05e7, Gunkel \u05d3\u05d0\u05d1, for \u05d0\u05de\u05dc\u05dc, ver. 4_b_; \u05d4 in \u05d4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd,\n\u200e5_a_; \u05d5 in \u05d5\u05ea\u05e9\u05d0,\u200e 5_b_; \u05d6 by removing \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9 of ver. 6_a_ to the end\nof the clause (and reading it there \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9\u05d5), and so leaving \u05d6\u05e2\u05de\u05d5 as the\nfirst word; \u05d7 in \u05d7\u05de\u05ea\u05d5 in 6_b_; \u05d8 in \u05d8\u05d5\u05d1,\u200e 7_a_; \u05d9 by eliding \u05d5\nfrom \u05d5\u05d9\u05d3\u05e2,\u200e 7_b_; \u05db in \u05db\u05dc\u05d4,\u200e 8; \u05dc is wanting, though Gunkel\nseeks to supply it by taking 9_c_, beginning \u05dc\u05d0, with 9_b_,\nbefore 9_a_; \u05de begins 9_a_.\n\n[220] See below in the translation.\n\n[221] As thus: 9_a_, 11_b_, 12 (but unintelligible), 10, 13, 14, ii. 1,\n3.\n\n[222] See above on Zephaniah, pp. 49 ff.\n\n[223] Cornill, in the 2nd ed. of his _Einleitung_, has accepted\nGunkel\u2019s and Bickell\u2019s main contentions.\n\n[224] iii. 8-10.\n\n[225] The description of the fall of No-Amon precludes the older\nview almost universally held before the discovery of Assurbanipal\u2019s\ndestruction of Thebes, viz. that Nahum prophesied in the days of\nHezekiah or in the earlier years of Manasseh (Lightfoot, Pusey,\nN\u00e4gelsbach, etc.).\n\n[226] So Schrader, Volck in Herz. _Real. Enc._, and others.\n\n[227] It is favoured by Winckler, _A.T. Untersuch._, pp. 127 f.\n\n[228] Above, pp. 15 f.; 19, 22 ff.\n\n[229] This in answer to Jeremias in Delitzsch\u2019s and Haupt\u2019s _Beitr\u00e4ge\nzur Assyriologie_, III. 96.\n\n[230] I. 103.\n\n[231] Hitzig\u2019s other reason, that the besiegers of Niniveh are\ndescribed by Nahum in ii. 3 ff. as single, which was true of the siege\nin 625 _c._, but not of that of 607\u20146, when the Chaldeans joined the\nMedes, is disposed of by the proof on p. 22 above, that even in 607\u20146\nthe Medes carried on the siege alone.\n\n[232] Page 17.\n\n[233] In commenting on chap. i. 9; p. 156 of _Kleine Propheten_.\n\n[234] The phrase which is so often appealed to by both sides, i. 9,\n_Jehovah maketh a complete end, not twice shall trouble arise_, is\nreally inconclusive. Hitzig maintains that if Nahum had written this\nafter the first and before the second siege of Niniveh he would have\nhad to say, \u201cnot thrice _shall trouble arise_.\u201d This is not conclusive:\nthe prophet is looking only at the future and thinking of it\u2014_not\ntwice_ again _shall trouble arise_; and if there were really two sieges\nof Niniveh, would the words _not twice_ have been suffered to remain,\nif they had been a confident prediction _before_ the first siege?\nBesides, the meaning of the phrase is not certain; it may be only a\ngeneral statement corresponding to what seems a general statement in\nthe first clause of the verse. Kuenen and others refer the _trouble_\nnot to that which is about to afflict Assyria, but to the long slavery\nand slaughter which Judah has suffered at Assyria\u2019s hands. Davidson\nleaves it ambiguous.\n\n[235] Technical military terms: ii. 2, \u05de\u05e6\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4;\u200e 4, \u05e4\u05dc\u05d3\u05ea (?);\u200e 4, \u05d4\u05e8\u05e2\u05dc\u05d5;\n6\u200e\u200e, \u05d4\u05e1\u05db\u05da; iii. 3, \u05de\u05e2\u05dc\u05d4 (?). Probably foreign terms: ii. 8,\u200e \u05d4\u05e6\u05d1;\niii. 17, \u05de\u05e0\u05d6\u05e8\u05d9\u05da. Certainly foreign: iii. 17, \u05d8\u05e4\u05e1\u05e8\u05d9\u05da.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII\n\n _THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD_\n\n NAHUM i\n\n\nThe prophet Nahum, as we have seen,[236] arose probably in Judah, if\nnot about the same time as Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years\nlater. Whether he prophesied before or after the great Reform of 621 we\nhave no means of deciding. His book does not reflect the inner history,\ncharacter or merits of his generation. His sole interest is the fate\nof Niniveh. Zephaniah had also doomed the Assyrian capital, yet he\nwas much more concerned with Israel\u2019s unworthiness of the opportunity\npresented to them. The yoke of Asshur, he saw, was to be broken, but\nthe same cloud which was bursting from the north upon Niniveh must\noverwhelm the incorrigible people of Jehovah. For this Nahum has no\nthought. His heart, for all its bigness, holds room only for the bitter\nmemories, the baffled hopes, the unappeased hatreds of a hundred\nyears. And that is why we need not be anxious to fix his date upon one\nor other of the shifting phases of Israel\u2019s history during that last\nquarter of the seventh century. For he represents no single movement of\nhis fickle people\u2019s progress, but the passion of the whole epoch then\ndrawing to a close. Nahum\u2019s book is one great At Last!\n\nAnd, therefore, while Nahum is a worse prophet than Zephaniah, with\nless conscience and less insight, he is a greater poet, pouring forth\nthe exultation of a people long enslaved, who see their tyrant ready\nfor destruction. His language is strong and brilliant; his rhythm\nrumbles and rolls, leaps and flashes, like the horsemen and chariots\nhe describes. It is a great pity the text is so corrupt. If the\noriginal lay before us, and that full knowledge of the times which the\nexcavation of ancient Assyria may still yield to us, we might judge\nNahum to be an even greater poet than we do.\n\nWe have seen that there are some reasons for doubting whether he wrote\nthe first chapter of the book,[237] but no one questions its fitness as\nan introduction to the exultation over Niniveh\u2019s fall in chapters ii.\nand iii. The chapter is theological, affirming those general principles\nof Divine Providence, by which the overthrow of the tyrant is certain\nand God\u2019s own people are assured of deliverance. Let us place ourselves\namong the people, who for so long a time had been thwarted, crushed and\ndemoralised by the most brutal empire which was ever suffered to roll\nits force across the world, and we shall sympathise with the author,\nwho for the moment will feel nothing about his God, save that He is a\nGod of vengeance. Like the grief of a bereaved man, the vengeance of an\nenslaved people has hours sacred to itself. And this people had such a\nGod! Jehovah must punish the tyrant, else were He untrue. He had been\npatient, and patient, as a verse seems to hint,[238] just because He\nwas omnipotent, but in the end He must rise to judgment. He was God of\nheaven and earth, and it is the old physical proofs of His power, so\noften appealed to by the peoples of the East, for they feel them as we\ncannot, which this hymn calls up as Jehovah sweeps to the overthrow of\nthe oppressor. _Before such power of wrath who may stand? What think ye\nof Jehovah?_ The God who works with such ruthless, absolute force in\nnature will not relax in the fate He is preparing for Niniveh. _He is\none who maketh utter destruction_, not needing to raise up His forces\na second time, and as stubble before fire so His foes go down before\nHim. No half-measures are His, Whose are the storm, the drought and the\nearthquake.\n\nSuch is the sheer religion of the Proem to the Book of Nahum\u2014thoroughly\nOriental in its sense of God\u2019s method and resources of destruction;\nvery Jewish, and very natural to that age of Jewish history, in the\nbursting of its long pent hopes of revenge. We of the West might\nexpress these hopes differently. We should not attribute so much\npersonal passion to the Avenger. With our keener sense of law, we\nshould emphasise the slowness of the process, and select for its\nillustration the forces of decay rather than those of sudden ruin. But\nwe must remember the crashing times in which the Jews lived. The world\nwas breaking up. The elements were loose, and all that God\u2019s own people\ncould hope for was the bursting of their yoke, with a little shelter in\nthe day of trouble. The elements were loose, but amidst the blind crash\nthe little people knew that Jehovah knew them.\n\n _A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah;\n Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath;\n Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies,\n And implacable He to His foes._\n\n _Jehovah is long-suffering and great in might,[239]\n Yet He will not absolve.\n Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane,\n And clouds are the dust of His feet.[240]\n He curbeth the sea, and drieth it up;\n All the streams hath He parched.\n Withered[241] be Bashan and Carmel;\n The bloom of Leb\u0101non is withered.\n Mountains have quaked before Him,\n And the hills have rolled down.\n Earth heaved at His presence,\n The world and all its inhabitants.\n Before His rage who may stand,\n Or who abide in the glow of His anger?\n His wrath pours forth like fire,\n And rocks are rent before Him._\n\n _Good is Jehovah to them that wait upon Him in the day of trouble,[242]\n And He knoweth them that trust Him.\n With an overwhelming flood He makes an end of His rebels,\n And His foes He comes down on[243] with darkness._\n\n _What think ye of Jehovah?\n He is one that makes utter destruction;\n Not twice need trouble arise.\n For though they be like plaited thorns,\n And sodden as ...,[244]\n They shall be consumed like dry stubble._\n\n _Came there not[245] out of thee one to plan evil against Jehovah,\n A counsellor of mischief?[246]_\n\n_Thus saith Jehovah, ... many waters,[247] yet shall they be cut off\nand pass away, and I will so humble thee that I need humble thee[248]\nno more;[249] and Jehovah hath ordered concerning thee, that no more of\nthy seed be sown: from the house of thy God, I will cut off graven and\nmolten image. I will make thy sepulchre_ ...[250]\n\nDisentangled from the above verses are three which plainly refer not\nto Assyria but to Judah. How they came to be woven among the others we\ncannot tell. Some of them appear applicable to the days of Josiah after\nthe great Reform.\n\n _And now will I break his yoke from upon thee,\n And burst thy bonds asunder.\n Lo, upon the mountains the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings,\n That publisheth peace!\n Keep thy feasts, O Judah,\n Fulfil thy vows:\n For no more shall the wicked attempt to pass through thee;\n Cut off is the whole of him.[251]\n For Jehovah hath turned the pride of Jacob,\n Like to the pride of Isr\u0101el:[252]\n For the plunderers plundered them,\n And destroyed their vine branches._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[236] Above, pp. 78 ff., 85 ff.\n\n[237] See above, pp. 81 ff.\n\n[238] Ver. 3, if the reading be correct.\n\n[239] Gunkel amends to _in mercy_ to make the parallel exact. But see\nabove, p. 82.\n\n[240] Gunkel\u2019s emendation is quite unnecessary here.\n\n[241] See above, p. 83.\n\n[242] So LXX. Heb. = _for a stronghold in the day of trouble_.\n\n[243] _Thrusts into_, Wellhausen, reading \u05d9\u05e0\u05d3\u05e3 or \u05d9\u05d3\u05e3 for \u05d9\u05e8\u05d3\u05e3. LXX.\n_darkness shall pursue_.\n\n[244] Heb. and R.V. _drenched as with their drink_. LXX. _like a\ntangled yew_. The text is corrupt.\n\n[245] The superfluous word \u05de\u05dc\u05d0 at the end of ver. 10 Wellhausen reads\nas \u05d4\u05dc\u05d0 at the beginning of ver. 11.\n\n[246] Usually taken as Sennacherib.\n\n[247] The Hebrew is given by the R.V. _though they be in full strength\nand likewise many_. LXX. _Thus saith Jehovah ruling over many waters_,\nreading \u05de\u05e9\u05dc \u05de\u05d9\u05dd \u05e8\u05d1\u05d9\u05dd and omitting the first \u05d5\u05db\u05df. Similarly Syr.\n_Thus saith Jehovah of the heads of many waters_, \u05e2\u05dc \u05de\u05e9\u05dc\u05d9 \u05de\u05d9\u05dd \u05e8\u05d1\u05d9\u05dd.\nWellhausen, substituting \u05de\u05d9\u05dd for the first \u05d5\u05db\u05df, translates, _Let the\ngreat waters be ever so full, they will yet all_ ...? (misprint here)\n_and vanish_. For \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8 read \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d5 with LXX., borrowing \u05d5 from next word.\n\n[248] Lit. _and I will afflict thee, I will not afflict thee again_.\nThis rendering implies that Niniveh is the object. The A.V., _though I\nhave afflicted thee I will afflict thee no more_, refers to Israel.\n\n[249] Omit ver. 13 and run 14 on to 12. For the curious alternation\nnow occurs: Assyria in one verse, Judah in the other. Assyria: i. 12,\n14, ii. 2 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 1), 4 ff. Judah: i. 13, ii. 1 (Heb.; Eng. i.\n15), 3 (Heb.; Eng. 2). Remove these latter, as Wellhausen does, and the\nverses on Assyria remain a connected and orderly whole. So in the text\nabove.\n\n[250] Syr. _make it thy sepulchre_. The Hebrew left untranslated above\nmight be rendered _for thou art vile_. Bickell amends into _dunghills_.\nLightfoot, _Chron. Temp. et Ord. Text V.T._ in Collected Works, I. 109,\ntakes this as a prediction of Sennacherib\u2019s murder in the temple, an\ninterpretation which demands a date for Nahum under either Hezekiah or\nManasseh. So Pusey also, p. 357.\n\n[251] LXX. _destruction_ \u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4, for \u05db\u05bb\u05bc\u05dc\u05d4.\n\n[252] Davidson: _restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency\nof Israel_, but when was the latter restored?\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII\n\n _THE SIEGE AND FALL OF NINIVEH_\n\n NAHUM ii., iii\n\n\nThe scene now changes from the presence and awful arsenal of the\nAlmighty to the historical consummation of His vengeance. Nahum\nforesees the siege of Niniveh. Probably the Medes have already overrun\nAssyria.[253] The _Old Lion_ has withdrawn to his inner den, and is\nmaking his last stand. The suburbs are full of the enemy, and the great\nwalls which made the inner city one vast fortress are invested. Nahum\ndescribes the details of the assault. Let us try, before we follow him\nthrough them, to form some picture of Assyria and her capital at this\ntime.[254]\n\nAs we have seen,[255] the Assyrian Empire began about 625 to shrink\nto the limits of Assyria proper, or Upper Mesopotamia, within the\nEuphrates on the south-west, the mountain-range of Kurdistan on the\nnorth-east, the river Chabor on the north-west and the Lesser Zab\non the south-east.[256] This is a territory of nearly a hundred and\nfifty miles from north to south, and rather more than two hundred and\nfifty from east to west. To the south of it the Viceroy of Babylon,\nNabopolassar, held practically independent sway over Lower Mesopotamia,\nif he did not command as well a large part of the Upper Euphrates\nValley. On the north the Medes were urgent, holding at least the\nfarther ends of the passes through the Kurdish mountains, if they had\nnot already penetrated these to their southern issues.\n\nThe kernel of the Assyrian territory was the triangle, two of whose\nsides are represented by the Tigris and the Greater Zab, the third\nby the foot of the Kurdistan mountains. It is a fertile plain, with\nsome low hills. To-day the level parts of it are covered by a large\nnumber of villages and well-cultivated fields. The more frequent\nmounds of ruin attest in ancient times a still greater population.\nAt the period of which we are treating, the plains must have been\ncovered by an almost continuous series of towns. At either end lay a\ngroup of fortresses. The southern was the ancient capital of Assyria,\nKalchu, now Nimrud, about six miles to the north of the confluence of\nthe Greater Zab and the Tigris. The northern, close by the present\ntown of Khorsabad, was the great fortress and palace of Sargon,\nDur-Sargina:[257] it covered the roads upon Niniveh from the north,\nand standing upon the upper reaches of the Choser protected Niniveh\u2019s\nwater supply. But besides these there were scattered upon all the main\nroads and round the frontiers of the territory a number of other forts,\ntowers and posts, the ruins of many of which are still considerable,\nbut others have perished without leaving any visible traces. The roads\nthus protected drew in upon Niniveh from all directions. The chief\nof those, along which the Medes and their allies would advance from\nthe east and north, crossed the Greater Zab, or came down through\nthe Kurdistan mountains upon the citadel of Sargon. Two of them were\ndistant enough from the latter to relieve the invaders from the\nnecessity of taking it, and Kalchu lay far to the south of all of them.\nThe brunt of the first defence of the land would therefore fall upon\nthe smaller fortresses.\n\nNiniveh itself lay upon the Tigris between Kalchu and Sargon\u2019s city,\njust where the Tigris is met by the Choser. Low hills descend from\nthe north upon the very site of the fortress, and then curve east and\nsouth, bow-shaped, to draw west again upon the Tigris at the south end\nof the city. To the east of the latter they leave a level plain, some\ntwo and a half miles by one and a half. These hills appear to have\nbeen covered by several forts. The city itself was four-sided, lying\nlengthwise to the Tigris and cut across its breadth by the Choser. The\ncircumference was about seven and a half miles, enclosing the largest\nfortified space in Western Asia, and capable of holding a population of\nthree hundred thousand. The western wall, rather over two and a half\nmiles long, touched the Tigris at either end, but between there lay a\nbroad, bow-shaped stretch of land, probably in ancient times, as now,\nfree of buildings. The north-western wall ran up from the Tigris for\na mile and a quarter to the low ridge which entered the city at its\nnorthern corner. From this the eastern wall, with a curve upon it, ran\ndown in face of the eastern plain for a little more than three miles,\nand was joined to the western by the short southern wall of not quite\nhalf a mile. The ruins of the western wall stand from ten to twenty,\nthose of the others from twenty-five to sixty, feet above the natural\nsurface, with here and there the still higher remains of towers. There\nwere several gates, of which the chief were one in the northern and two\nin the eastern wall. Round all the walls except the western ran moats\nabout a hundred and fifty feet broad\u2014not close up to the foot of the\nwalls, but at a distance of some sixty feet. Water was supplied by the\nChoser to all the moats south of it; those to the north were fed from\na canal which entered the city near its northern corner. At these and\nother points one can still trace the remains of huge dams, batardeaux\nand sluices; and the moats might be emptied by opening at either end\nof the western wall other dams, which kept back the waters from the\nbed of the Tigris. Beyond its moat, the eastern wall was protected\nnorth of the Choser by a large outwork covering its gate, and south of\nthe Choser by another outwork, in shape the segment of a circle, and\nconsisting of a double line of fortification more than five hundred\nyards long, of which the inner wall was almost as high as the great\nwall itself, but the outer considerably lower. Again, in front of this\nand in face of the eastern plain was a third line of fortification,\nconsisting of a low inner wall and a colossal outer wall still rising\nto a height of fifty feet, with a moat one hundred and fifty feet\nbroad between them. On the south this third line was closed by a large\nfortress.\n\nUpon the trebly fortified city the Medes drew in from east and north,\nfar away from Kalchu and able to avoid even Dur-Sargina. The other\nfortresses on the frontier and the approaches fell into their hands,\nsays Nahum, like _ripe fruit_.[258] He cries to Niniveh to prepare\nfor the siege.[259] Military authorities[260] suppose that the Medes\ndirected their main attack upon the northern corner of the city.\nHere they would be upon a level with its highest point, and would\ncommand the waterworks by which most of the moats were fed. Their\nflank, too, would be protected by the ravines of the Choser. Nahum\ndescribes fighting in the suburbs before the assault of the walls, and\nit was just here, according to some authorities,[261] that the famous\nsuburbs of Niniveh lay, out upon the canal and the road to Khorsabad.\nAll the open fighting which Nahum foresees would take place in these\n_outplaces_ and _broad streets_[262]\u2014the mustering of the _red_\nranks,[263] the _prancing horses_[264] and _rattling chariots_[265] and\n_cavalry at the charge_.[266] Beaten there the Assyrians would retire\nto the great walls, and the waterworks would fall into the hands of\nthe besiegers. They would not immediately destroy these, but in order\nto bring their engines and battering-rams against the walls they would\nhave to lay strong dams across the moats; the eastern moat has actually\nbeen found filled with rubbish in face of a great breach at the north\nend of its wall. This breach may have been effected not only by the\nrams but by directing upon the wall the waters of the canal; or farther\nsouth the Choser itself, in its spring floods, may have been confined\nby the besiegers and swept in upon the sluices which regulate its\npassage through the eastern wall into the city. To this means tradition\nhas assigned the capture of Niniveh,[267] and Nahum perhaps foresees\nthe possibility of it: _the gates of the rivers are opened, the palace\nis dissolved_.[268]\n\nNow of all this probable progress of the siege Nahum, of course, does\nnot give us a narrative, for he is writing upon the eve of it, and\nprobably, as we have seen, in Judah, with only such knowledge of the\nposition and strength of Niniveh as her fame had scattered across the\nworld. The military details, the muster, the fighting in the open, the\ninvestment, the assault, he did not need to go to Assyria or to wait\nfor the fall of Niniveh to describe as he has done. Assyria herself\n(and herein lies much of the pathos of the poem) had made all Western\nAsia familiar with their horrors for the last two centuries. As we\nlearn from the prophets and now still more from herself, Assyria was\nthe great Besieger of Men. It is siege, siege, siege, which Amos, Hosea\nand Isaiah tell their people they shall feel: _siege and blockade,\nand that right round the land!_ It is siege, irresistible and full of\ncruelty, which Assyria records as her own glory. Miles of sculpture\nare covered with masses of troops marching upon some Syrian or Median\nfortress. Scaling ladders and enormous engines are pushed forward to\nthe walls under cover of a shower of arrows. There are assaults and\nbreaches, panic-stricken and suppliant defenders. Streets and places\nare strewn with corpses, men are impaled, women led away weeping,\nchildren dashed against the stones. The Jews had seen, had felt these\nhorrors for a hundred years, and it is out of their experience of them\nthat Nahum weaves his exultant predictions. The Besieger of the world\nis at last besieged; every cruelty he has inflicted upon men is now\nto be turned upon himself. Again and again does Nahum return to the\nvivid details,\u2014he hears the very whips crack beneath the walls, and the\nrattle of the leaping chariots; the end is slaughter, dispersion and a\ndead waste.[269]\n\nTwo other points remain to be emphasised.\n\nThere is a striking absence from both chapters of any reference\nto Israel.[270] Jehovah of Hosts is mentioned twice in the same\nformula,[271] but otherwise the author does not obtrude his\nnationality. It is not in Judah\u2019s name he exults, but in that of\nall the peoples of Western Asia. Niniveh has sold _peoples_ by her\nharlotries and _races_ by her witchcraft; it is _peoples_ that shall\ngaze upon her nakedness and _kingdoms_ upon her shame. Nahum gives\nvoice to no national passions, but to the outraged conscience of\nmankind. We see here another proof, not only of the large, human heart\nof prophecy, but of that which in the introduction to these Twelve\nProphets we ventured to assign as one of its causes. By crushing all\npeoples to a common level of despair, by the universal pity which her\ncruelties excited, Assyria contributed to the development in Israel of\nthe idea of a common humanity.[272]\n\nThe other thing to be noticed is Nahum\u2019s feeling of the incoherence and\nmercenariness of the vast population of Niniveh. Niniveh\u2019s command of\nthe world had turned her into a great trading power. Under Assurbanipal\nthe lines of ancient commerce had been diverted so as to pass through\nher. The immediate result was an enormous increase of population, such\nas the world had never before seen within the limits of one city. But\nthis had come out of all races and was held together only by the greed\nof gain. What had once been a firm and vigorous nation of warriors,\nirresistible in their united impact upon the world, was now a loose\naggregate of many peoples, without patriotism, discipline or sense of\nhonour. Nahum likens it to a reservoir of waters,[273] which as soon as\nit is breached must scatter, and leave the city bare. The Second Isaiah\nsaid the same of Babylon, to which the bulk of Niniveh\u2019s mercenary\npopulace must have fled:\u2014\n\n _Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee,\n Traders of thine from thy youth up;\n Each as he could escape have they fled;\n None is thy helper._[274]\n\nThe prophets saw the truth about both cities. Their vastness and their\nsplendour were artificial. Neither of them, and Niniveh still less\nthan Babylon, was a natural centre for the world\u2019s commerce. When\ntheir political power fell, the great lines of trade, which had been\ntwisted to their feet, drew back to more natural courses, and Niniveh\nin especial became deserted. This is the explanation of the absolute\ncollapse of that mighty city. Nahum\u2019s foresight, and the very metaphor\nin which he expressed it, were thoroughly sound. The population\nvanished like water. The site bears little trace of any disturbance\nsince the ruin by the Medes, except such as has been inflicted\nby the weather and the wandering tribes around. Mosul, Niniveh\u2019s\nrepresentative to-day, is not built upon it, and is but a provincial\ntown. The district was never meant for anything else.\n\nThe swift decay of these ancient empires from the climax of their\ncommercial glory is often employed as a warning to ourselves. But\nthe parallel, as the previous paragraphs suggest, is very far from\nexact. If we can lay aside for the moment the greatest difference of\nall, in religion and morals, there remain others almost of cardinal\nimportance. Assyria and Babylonia were not filled, like Great Britain,\nwith reproductive races, able to colonise distant lands, and carry\neverywhere the spirit which had made them strong at home. Still\nmore, they did not continue at home to be homogeneous. Their native\nforces were exhausted by long and unceasing wars. Their populations,\nespecially in their capitals, were very largely alien and distraught,\nwith nothing to hold them together save their commercial interests.\nThey were bound to break up at the first disaster. It is true that\nwe are not without some risks of their peril. No patriot among us\ncan observe without misgiving the large and growing proportion of\nforeigners in that department of our life from which the strength of\nour defence is largely drawn\u2014our merchant navy. But such a fact is\nvery far from bringing our empire and its chief cities into the fatal\ncondition of Niniveh and Babylon. Our capitals, our commerce, our life\nas a whole are still British to the core. If we only be true to our\nideals of righteousness and religion, if our patriotism continue moral\nand sincere, we shall have the power to absorb the foreign elements\nthat throng to us in commerce, and stamp them with our own spirit.\n\nWe are now ready to follow Nahum\u2019s two great poems delivered on the\neve of the Fall of Niniveh. Probably, as we have said, the first of\nthem has lost its original opening. It wants some notice at the outset\nof the object to which it is addressed: this is indicated only by\nthe second personal pronoun. Other needful comments will be given in\nfootnotes.\n\n\n 1.\n\n _The Hammer[275] is come up to thy face!\n Hold the rampart![276]Keep watch on the way!\n Brace the loins![277] Pull thyself firmly together![278]\n The shields[279] of his heroes are red,\n The warriors are in scarlet;[280]\n Like[281] fire are the ...[282]of the chariots in the day\n of his muster,\n And the horsemen[283] are prancing.\n Through the markets rage chariots,\n They tear across the squares;[284]\n The look of them is like torches,\n Like lightnings they dart to and fro.[285]\n He musters his nobles....[286]\n They rush to the wall and the mantlet[287] is fixed!\n The river-gates[288] burst open, the palace dissolves.[289]\n And Hu\u1e63\u1e63ab[290] is stripped, is brought forth,\n With her maids sobbing like doves,\n Beating their breasts.\n And Niniveh! she was like a reservoir of waters,\n Her waters ...[291]\n And now they flee. \u201cStand, stand!\u201d but there is\n none to rally.\n Plunder silver, plunder gold!\n Infinite treasures, mass of all precious things!\n Void and devoid and desolate[292] is she.\n Melting hearts and shaking knees,\n And anguish in all loins,\n And nothing but faces full of black fear._[293]\n\n _Where is the Lion\u2019s den,\n And the young lions\u2019 feeding ground[294]?\n Whither the Lion retreated,[295]\n The whelps of the Lion, with none to affray:\n The Lion, who tore enough for his whelps,\n And strangled for his lionesses.\n And he filled his pits with prey,\n And his dens with rapine._\n\n _Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):\n I will put up thy ...[296] in flames,\n The sword shall devour thy young lions;\n I will cut off from the earth thy rapine,\n And the noise of thine envoys shall no more be heard._\n\n\n 2.\n\n _Woe to the City of Blood,\n All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!_\n\n _Hark the whip,\n And the rumbling of the wheel,\n And horses galloping,\n And the rattling dance of the chariot![297]\n Cavalry at the charge,[298] and flash of sabres,\n And lightning of lances,\n Mass of slain and weight of corpses,\n Endless dead bodies\u2014\n They stumble on their dead!\n \u2014For the manifold harlotries of the Harlot,\n The well-favoured, mistress of charms,\n She who sold nations with her harlotries\n And races by her witchcrafts!_\n\n _Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):\n I will uncover thy skirts to thy face;[299]\n Give nations to look on thy nakedness,\n And kingdoms upon thy shame;\n Will have thee pelted with filth, and disgrace thee,\n And set thee for a gazingstock;\n So that every one seeing thee shall shrink from thee and say,\n \u201cShattered is Niniveh\u2014who will pity her?\n Whence shall I seek for comforters to thee?\u201d_\n\n _Shalt thou be better than No-Amon,[300]\n Which sat upon the Nile streams[301]\u2014waters were round her\u2014\n Whose rampart was the sea,[302] and waters her wall?[303]\n Kush was her strength and Mi\u1e63raim without end;\n Phut and the Lybians were there to assist her.[304]\n Even she was for exile, she went to captivity:\n Even her children were dashed on every street corner;\n For her nobles they cast lots,\n And all her great men were fastened with fetters._\n\n _Thou too shalt stagger,[305] shalt grow faint;\n Thou too shalt seek help from[306] the foe!\n All thy fortresses are fig-trees with figs early-ripe:\n Be they shaken they fall on the mouth of the eater.\n Lo, thy folk are but women in thy midst:[307]\n To thy foes the gates of thy land fly open;\n Fire has devoured thy bars._\n\n _Draw thee water for siege, strengthen thy forts!\n Get thee down to the mud, and tramp in the clay!\n Grip fast the brick-mould!\n There fire consumes thee, the sword cuts thee off.[308]\n Make thyself many as a locust swarm,\n Many as grasshoppers,\n Multiply thy traders more than heaven\u2019s stars,\n \u2014The locusts break off[309] and fly away.\n Thy ...[310] are as locusts and thy ... as grasshoppers,\n That hive in the hedges in the cold of the day:[311]\n The sun is risen, they are fled,\n And one knows not the place where they be._\n\n _Asleep are thy shepherds, O king of Assyria,\n Thy nobles do slumber;[312]\n Thy people are strewn on the mountains,\n Without any to gather.\n There is no healing of thy wreck,\n Fatal thy wound!\n All who hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hand at thee,\n For upon whom hath not thy cruelty passed without ceasing?_\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[253] See above, pp. 22 ff.\n\n[254] The authorities are very full. First there is M. Botta\u2019s huge\nwork _Monument de Ninive_, Paris, 5 vols., 1845. Then must be mentioned\nthe work of which we availed ourselves in describing Babylon in _Isaiah\nxl.\u2014lxvi._, Expositor\u2019s Bible, pp. 52 ff.: \u201cMemoirs by Commander\nJames Felix Jones, I.N.,\u201d in _Selections from the Records of the\nBombay Government_, No. XLIII., New Series, 1857. It is good to find\nthat the careful and able observations of Commander Jones, too much\nneglected in his own country, have had justice done them by the German\nColonel Billerbeck in the work about to be cited. Then there is the\ninvaluable _Niniveh and its Remains_, by Layard. There are also the\nworks of Rawlinson and George Smith. And recently Colonel Billerbeck,\nfounding on these and other works, has published an admirable monograph\n(lavishly illustrated by maps and pictures), not only upon the military\nstate of Assyria proper and of Niniveh at this period, but upon the\nwhole subject of Assyrian fortification and art of besieging, as well\nas upon the course of the Median invasions. It forms the larger part of\nan article to which Dr. Alfred Jeremias contributes an introduction,\nand reconstruction with notes of chaps. ii. and iii. of the Book of\nNahum: \u201cDer Untergang Niniveh\u2019s und die Weissagungschrift des Nahum von\nEl\u1e33osh,\u201d in Vol. III. of _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen\nSprachwissenschaft_, edited by Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, with\nthe support of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.: Leipzig,\n1895.\n\n[255] Pages 20 f.\n\n[256] Colonel Billerbeck (p. 115) thinks that the south-east frontier\nat this time lay more to the north, near the Greater Zab.\n\n[257] First excavated by M. Botta, 1842-1845. See also George Smith,\n_Assyr. Disc._, pp. 98 f.\n\n[258] iii. 12.\n\n[259] iii. 14.\n\n[260] See Jones and Billerbeck.\n\n[261] Delitzsch places the \u05e2\u05d9\u05e8 \u05e8\u05d7\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea of Gen. x. 11, the \u201cribit Nina\u201d of\nthe inscriptions, on the north-east of Niniveh.\n\n[262] ii. 4 Eng., 5 Heb.\n\n[263] ii. 3 Eng., 4 Heb.\n\n[264] _Ibid._ LXX.\n\n[265] iii. 2.\n\n[266] iii. 3.\n\n[267] It is the waters of the Tigris that the tradition avers to have\nbroken the wall; but the Tigris itself runs in a bed too low for this:\nit can only have been the Choser. See both Jones and Billerbeck.\n\n[268] ii. 6.\n\n[269] If the above conception of chaps. ii. and iii. be correct, then\nthere is no need for such a re-arrangement of these verses as has been\nproposed by Jeremias and Billerbeck. In order to produce a continuous\nnarrative of the progress of the siege, they bring forward iii. 12-15\n(describing the fall of the fortresses and gates of the land and the\ncall to the defence of the city), and place it immediately after ii.\n2, 4 (the description of the invader) and ii. 5-11 (the appearance of\nchariots in the suburbs of the city, the opening of the floodgates,\nthe flight and the spoiling of the city). But if they believe that the\noriginal gave an orderly account of the progress of the siege, why do\nthey not bring forward also iii. 2 f., which describe the arrival of\nthe foe under the city walls? The truth appears to be as stated above.\nWe have really two poems against Niniveh, chap. ii. and chap. iii.\nThey do not give an orderly description of the siege, but exult over\nNiniveh\u2019s imminent downfall, with gleams scattered here and there of\nhow this is to happen. Of these \u201cimpressions\u201d of the coming siege there\nare three, and in the order in which we now have them they occur very\nnaturally: ii. 5 ff., iii. 2 f., and iii. 12 ff.\n\n[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp. 94 f.\n\n[271] ii. 13, iii. 5.\n\n[272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. IV., especially pp. 54 ff.\n\n[273] ii. 8.\n\n[274] _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible), pp. 197 ff.\n\n[275] Read \u05de\u05b7\u05e4\u05b5\u05bc\u05e5 with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade\u2019s _W\u00f6rterbuch_,\nsub \u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e5) for \u05de\u05b5\u05e4\u05b4\u05d9\u05e5, _Breaker in pieces_. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is\nalso called by Jehovah His \u05de\u05b7\u05e4\u05b5\u05bc\u05e5, _Hammer_ or _Maul_.\n\n[276] _Keep watch_, Wellhausen.\n\n[277] This may be a military call to attention, the converse of \u201cStand\nat ease!\u201d\n\n[278] Heb. literally: _brace up thy power exceedingly_.\n\n[279] Heb. singular.\n\n[280] Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes.\nThe Assyrians also loved red.\n\n[281] Read \u05db\u05d0\u05e9\u05c1 for \u05d1\u05d0\u05e9\u05c1.\n\n[282]\u200e \u05e4\u05dc\u05d3\u05d5\u05ea, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur\nelsewhere. LXX. \u1f21\u03bd\u03af\u03b1\u03b9; Vulg. _haben\u00e6_. Some have thought that it means\n_scythes_\u2014cf. the Arabic _falad_, \u201cto cut\u201d\u2014but the earliest notice of\nchariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish\nliterature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias,\n_op. cit._, p. 97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum\nare applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian\nmonuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf.\n_ibid._, p. 167, n. ***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is\nmore probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots\nwere covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).\n\n[283] So LXX., reading \u05e4\u05e8\u05e9\u05d9\u05dd for \u05d1\u05e8\u05e9\u05d9\u05dd of Heb. text, that means\n_fir-trees_. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose\nwith Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were\nmeant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls\nby engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the\ncavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.\n\n[284] Or _broad places_ or _suburbs_. See above, pp. 100 f.\n\n[285] See above, p. 106, end of n. 282.\n\n[286] Heb. _They stumble in their goings._ Davidson holds this is\nmore probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the\nbesiegers. See next note.\n\n[287]\u200e \u05d4\u05e1\u05b9\u05bc\u05db\u05b5\u05da\u05b0. Partic. of the verb _to cover_, hence covering thing:\nwhether _mantlet_ (on the side of the besiegers) or _bulwark_ (on\nthe side of the besieged: cf. \u05de\u05b8\u05e1\u05b8\u05da\u05b0, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain.\nBillerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver. 5\nas illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements\nthemselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *).\n\n[288] _Sluices_ (Jeremias) or _bridge-gates_ (Wellhausen)?\n\n[289] Or _breaks into motion_, i.e. _flight_.\n\n[290]\u200e \u05d4\u05bb\u05e6\u05bc\u05d1, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of \u05e0\u05e6\u05d1 and has been\ntaken to mean _it is determined, she_ (Niniveh) _is taken captive_.\nVolck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: _it is settled_. LXX. \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 =\n\u05de\u05e6\u05d1. Vulg. _miles_ (as if some form of \u05e6\u05d1\u05d0?). Hitzig points it \u05d4\u05b7\u05e6\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1,\n_the lizard_, Wellhausen _the toad_. But this noun is masculine (Lev.\nxi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other \u05d4\u05b7\u05e6\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1,\nfem., the _litter_ or _palanquin_ (Isa. lxvi. 20): \u201cin lieu of anything\nbetter one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the\nwoman or lady, just as in Arab. \u1e0d\u1e25a\u2019inah means a woman\u2019s litter and\nthen a woman.\u201d One is also tempted to think of \u05d4\u05b7\u05e6\u05b0\u05bc\u05d1\u05d9, _the beauty_.\nThe Targ. has \u05de\u05dc\u05db\u05ea\u05d0, _the queen_. From as early as at least 1527\n(_Latina Interpretatio_ Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited\nfor the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of\nscholars as a proper name, Hu\u1e63\u1e63ab. So Ewald and others. It may be an\nAssyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is\ncorrupt.\n\nMr. Paul Ruben (_Academy_, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of\n\u05d4\u05e2\u05dc\u05ea\u05d4, _is brought forth_, to read \u05d4\u05e2\u05ea\u05dc\u05d4, and to translate it by\nanalogy of the Assyrian \u201cetellu,\u201d fem. \u201cetellitu\u201d = great or exalted,\n_The Lady_. The line would then run _Hu\u1e63\u1e63ab, the lady, is stripped_.\n(With \u05d4\u05e2\u05ea\u05dc\u05d4 Cheyne, _Academy_, June 21st, 1896, compares \u05e2\u05ea\u05dc\u05d9\u05d4, which,\nhe suggests, is \u201cYahwe is great\u201d or \u201cis lord.\u201d)\n\n[291] Heb. \u05de\u05b5\u05d9\u05de\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d4\u05b4\u05d9\u05d0 for \u05de\u05d9\u05de\u05d9 \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05d4\u05d9\u05d0, _from days she was_. A.V. _is\nof old_. R.V. _hath been of old_, and Marg. _from the days that she\nhath been_. LXX. _her waters_, \u05de\u05b5\u05d9\u05de\u05b6\u05d9\u05d4\u05b8. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps.\nciv. 7.\n\n[292] Bu\u1e33ah, umebu\u1e33ah, umebull\u0101\u1e33ah. Ewald: _desert and desolation and\ndevastation_. The adj. are feminine.\n\n[293] Literally: _and the faces of all them gather lividness_.\n\n[294] For \u05de\u05e8\u05e2\u05d4 Wellhausen reads \u05de\u05e2\u05e8\u05d4, _cave_ or _hold_.\n\n[295] LXX., reading \u05dc\u05d1\u05d5\u05d0 for \u05dc\u05d1\u05d9\u05d0.\n\n[296] Heb. _her chariots_. LXX. and Syr. suggest _thy mass_ or\n_multitude_, \u05e8\u05d1\u05db\u05d4. Davidson suggests _thy lair_, \u05e8\u05d1\u05e6\u05db\u05d4.\n\n[297] Literally _and the chariot dancing_, but the word, merakedah, has\na rattle in it.\n\n[298] Doubtful, \u05de\u05b7\u05e2\u05b2\u05dc\u05b6\u05d4. LXX. \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n[299] Jeremias (104) shows how the Assyrians did this to female\ncaptives.\n\n[300] Jer. xlvi. 25: _I will punish Amon at No_. Ezek. xxx. 14-16:\n_... judgments in No.... I will cut off No-Amon_ (Heb. and A.V.\n_multitude of No_, reading \u05d4\u05de\u05d5\u05df; so also LXX. \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03bb\u1fc6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 for \u05d0\u05de\u05d5\u05df)\n_... and No shall be broken up_. It is Thebes, the Egyptian name of\nwhich was Nu-Amen. The god Amen had his temple there: Herod. I. 182,\nII. 42. Nahum refers to Assurbanipal\u2019s account of the fall of Thebes.\nSee above, p. 11.\n\n[301]\u200e \u05d4\u05d9\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd. Pl. of the word for Nile.\n\n[302] Arabs still call the Nile the sea.\n\n[303] So LXX., reading \u05de\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05dd for Heb. \u05de\u05b4\u05d9\u05b8\u05bc\u05dd.\n\n[304] So LXX.; Heb. _thee_.\n\n[305] Heb. _be drunken_.\n\n[306] I.e. _against_, _because of_.\n\n[307] Jer. l. 37, li. 30.\n\n[308] Heb. and LXX. add _devour thee like the locust_, probably a gloss.\n\n[309] Cf. Jer. ix. 33. Some take it of the locusts stripping the skin\nwhich confines their wings: Davidson.\n\n[310]\u200e \u05de\u05e0\u05d6\u05e8\u05d9\u05da. A.V. _thy crowned ones_; but perhaps like its\nneighbour an Assyrian word, meaning we know not what. Wellhausen reads\n\u05de\u05de\u05d6\u05e8\u05da, LXX. \u1f41 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6 (applied in Deut. xxiii. 3 and Zech. ix. 6\nto the offspring of a mixed marriage between an Israelite and a\nGentile), deine Mischlinge: a term of contempt for the floating foreign\nor semi-foreign population which filled Niniveh and was ready to fly at\nsight of danger. Similarly Wellhausen takes the second term, \u05d8\u05e4\u05e1\u05e8.\nThis, which occurs also in Jer. li. 27, appears to be some kind of\nofficial. In Assyrian _dupsar_ is scribe, which may, like Heb. \u05e9\u05c1\u05d8\u05e8,\nhave been applied to any high official. See Schrader, _K.A.T._, Eng.\nTr., I. 141, II. 118. See also Fried. Delitzsch, _Wo lag Parad._, p.\n142. The name and office were ancient. Such Babylonian officials are\nmentioned in the Tell el Amarna letters as present at the Egyptian\ncourt.\n\n[311] Heb. _day of cold_.\n\n[312]\u200e \u05d9\u05e9\u05db\u05e0\u05d5, _dwell_, is the Heb. reading. But LXX. \u05d9\u05e9\u05e0\u05d5,\n\u1f10\u03ba\u03bf\u03af\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd. Sleep must be taken in the sense of death: cf. Jer. li. 39,\n57; Isa. xiv. 18.\n\n\n\n\n _HABAKKUK_\n\n\n\n\n _Upon my watch-tower will I stand,\n And take up my post on the rampart.\n I will watch to see what He will say to me,\n And what answer I get back to my plea._\n\n * * * * *\n\n _The righteous shall live by his faithfulness._\n\n\n \u201cThe beginning of speculation in Israel.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX\n\n _THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK_\n\n\nAs it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk, under the title _The Oracle\nwhich Habakkuk the prophet received by vision_, consists of three\nchapters, which fall into three sections. _First:_ chap. i. 2\u2014ii. 4\n(or 8), a piece in dramatic form; the prophet lifts his voice to God\nagainst the wrong and violence of which his whole horizon is full, and\nGod sends him answer. _Second:_ chap. ii. 5 (or 9)-20, a taunt-song\nin a series of Woes upon the wrong-doer. _Third:_ chap. iii., part\npsalm, part prayer, descriptive of a Theophany and expressive of\nIsrael\u2019s faith in their God. Of these three sections no one doubts the\nauthenticity of the _first_; opinion is divided about the _second_;\nabout the _third_ there is a growing agreement that it is not a genuine\nwork of Habakkuk, but a poem from a period after the Exile.\n\n\n1. CHAP. I. 2\u2014II. 4 (OR 8).\n\nYet it is the first piece which raises the most difficult questions.\nAll[313] admit that it is to be dated somewhere along the line of\nJeremiah\u2019s long career, _c._ 627\u2014586. There is no doubt about the\ngeneral trend of the argument: it is a plaint to God on the sufferings\nof the righteous under tyranny, with God\u2019s answer. But the order and\nconnection of the paragraphs of the argument are not clear. There is\nalso difference of opinion as to who the tyrant is\u2014native, Assyrian or\nChaldee; and this leads to a difference, of course, about the date,\nwhich ranges from the early years of Josiah to the end of Jehoiakim\u2019s\nreign, or from about 630 to 597.\n\nAs the verses lie, their argument is this. In chap. i. 2-4 Habakkuk\nasks the Lord how long the wicked are to oppress the righteous, to\nthe paralysing of the Torah, or Revelation of His Law, and the making\nfutile of judgment. For answer the Lord tells him, vv. 5-11, to look\nround among the heathen: He is about to raise up the Chaldees to do His\nwork, a people swift, self-reliant, irresistible. Upon which Habakkuk\nresumes his question, vv. 12-17, how long will God suffer a tyrant\nwho sweeps up the peoples into his net like fish? Is he to go on with\nthis for ever? In ii. 1 Habakkuk prepares for an answer, which comes\nin ii. 2, 3, 4: let the prophet wait for the vision though it tarries;\nthe proud oppressor cannot last, but the righteous shall live by his\nconstancy, or faithfulness.\n\nThe difficulties are these. Who are the wicked oppressors in chap. i.\n2-4? Are they Jews, or some heathen nation? And what is the connection\nbetween vv. 1-4 and vv. 5-11? Are the Chaldees, who are described in\nthe latter, raised up to punish the tyrant complained against in the\nformer? To these questions three different sets of answers have been\ngiven.\n\n_First:_ the great majority of critics take the wrong complained\nof in vv. 2-4 to be wrong done by unjust and cruel Jews to their\ncountrymen, that is, civic disorder and violence, and believe that\nin vv. 5-11 Jehovah is represented as raising up the Chaldees to\npunish the sin of Judah\u2014a message which is pretty much the same as\nJeremiah\u2019s. But Habakkuk goes further: the Chaldees themselves with\ntheir cruelties aggravate his problem, how God can suffer wrong, and\nhe appeals again to God, vv. 12-17. Are the Chaldees to be allowed to\ndevastate for ever? The answer is given, as above, in chap. ii. 1-4.\nSuch is practically the view of Pusey, Delitzsch, Kleinert, Kuenen,\nSinker,[314] Driver, Orelli, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer and Davidson, a\nformidable league, and Davidson says \u201cthis is the most natural sense of\nthe verses and of the words used in them.\u201d But these scholars differ\nas to the date. Pusey, Delitzsch and Volck take the whole passage from\ni. 5 as prediction, and date it from before the rise of the Chaldee\npower in 625, attributing the internal wrongs of Judah described in\nvv. 2-4 to Manasseh\u2019s reign or the early years of Josiah.[315] But\nthe rest, on the grounds that the prophet shows some experience of\nthe Chaldean methods of warfare, and that the account of the internal\ndisorder in Judah does not suit Josiah\u2019s reign, bring the passage down\nto the reign of Jehoiakim, 608\u2014598, or of Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and\nVon Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish, 506, in which the\nChaldean Nebuchadrezzar wrested from Egypt the Empire of the Western\nAsia, on the ground that after that Habakkuk could not have called\na Chaldean invasion of Judah incredible (i. 5). But Kuenen, Driver,\nKirkpatrick, Wildeboer and Davidson date it after Carchemish. To Driver\nit must be immediately after, and before Judah became alarmed at the\nconsequences to herself. To Davidson the description of the Chaldeans\n\u201cis scarcely conceivable before the battle,\u201d \u201chardly one would think\nbefore the deportation of the people under Jehoiachin.\u201d[316] This also\nis Kuenen\u2019s view, who thinks that Judah must have suffered at least the\nfirst Chaldean raids, and he explains the use of an undoubted future in\nchap. i. 5, _Lo, I am about to raise up the Chaldeans_, as due to the\nprophet\u2019s predilection for a dramatic style. \u201cHe sets himself in the\npast, and represents the already experienced chastisement [of Judah]\nas having been then announced by Jehovah. His contemporaries could not\nhave mistaken his meaning.\u201d\n\n_Second:_ others, however, deny that chap. i. 2-4 refers to the\ninternal disorder of Judah, except as the effect of foreign tyranny.\nThe _righteous_ mentioned there are Israel as a whole, _the wicked_\ntheir heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald, K\u00f6nig and practically\nSmend. Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no sin to Judah, that\nhe says we might be led by this to assign the prophecy to the reign of\nthe righteous Josiah; but he prefers, because of the vivid sense which\nthe prophet betrays of actual experience of the Chaldees, to date the\npassage from the reign of Jehoiakim, and to explain Habakkuk\u2019s silence\nabout his people\u2019s sinfulness as due to his overwhelming impression of\nChaldean cruelty. K\u00f6nig[317] takes vv. 2-4 as a general complaint of\nthe violence that fills the prophet\u2019s day, and vv. 5-11 as a detailed\ndescription of the Chaldeans, the instruments of this violence.\nVv. 5-11, therefore, give not the judgment upon the wrongs described in\nvv. 2-4, but the explanation of them. Lebanon is already wasted by the\nChaldeans (ii. 17); therefore the whole prophecy must be assigned to\nthe days of Jehoiakim. Giesebrecht[318] and Wellhausen adhere to the\nview that no sins of Judah are mentioned, but that the _righteous_ and\n_wicked_ of chap. i. 4 are the same as in ver. 13, viz. Israel and a\nheathen tyrant. But this leads them to dispute that the present order\nof the paragraphs of the prophecy is the right one. In chap. i. 5 the\nChaldeans are represented as about to be raised up for the first time,\nalthough their violence has already been described in vv. 1-4, and in\nvv. 12-17 these are already in full career. Moreover ver. 12 follows on\nnaturally to ver. 4. Accordingly these critics would remove the section\nvv. 5-11. Giesebrecht prefixes it to ver. 1, and dates the whole\npassage from the Exile. Wellhausen calls 5-11 an older passage than the\nrest of the prophecy, and removes it altogether as not Habakkuk\u2019s. To\nthe latter he assigns what remains, i. 1-4, 12-17, ii. 1-5, and dates\nit from the reign of Jehoiakim.[319]\n\n_Third:_ from each of these groups of critics Budde of Strasburg\nborrows something, but so as to construct an arrangement of the verses,\nand to reach a date, for the whole, from which both differ.[320] With\nHitzig, Ewald, K\u00f6nig, Smend, Giesebrecht and Wellhausen he agrees that\nthe violence complained of in i. 2-4 is that inflicted by a heathen\noppressor, _the wicked_, on the Jewish nation, the _righteous_. But\nwith Kuenen and others he holds that the Chaldeans are raised up,\naccording to i. 5-11, to punish the violence complained of in i. 2-4\nand again in i. 12-17. In these verses it is the ravages of another\nheathen power than the Chaldeans which Budde descries. The Chaldeans\nare still to come, and cannot be the same as the devastator whose long\ncontinued tyranny is described in i. 12-17. They are rather the power\nwhich is to punish him. He can only be the Assyrian. But if that be so,\nthe proper place for the passage, i. 5-11, which describes the rise of\nthe Chaldeans must be after the description of the Assyrian ravages in\ni. 12-17, and in the body of God\u2019s answer to the prophet which we find\nin ii. 2 ff. Budde, therefore, places i. 5-11 after ii. 2-4. But if the\nChaldeans are still to come, and Budde thinks that they are described\nvaguely and with a good deal of imagination, the prophecy thus arranged\nmust fall somewhere between 625, when Nabopolassar the Chaldean made\nhimself independent of Assyria and King of Babylon, and 607, when\nAssyria fell. That the prophet calls Judah _righteous_ is proof that he\nwrote after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference to Torah\nand Mishpat (i. 4), and his complaint of the obstacles which Assyrian\nsupremacy presented to their free course. As the Assyrian yoke appears\nnot to have been felt anywhere in Judah by 608, Budde would fix the\nexact date of Habakkuk\u2019s prophecy about 615. To these conclusions of\nBudde Cornill, who in 1891 had very confidently assigned the prophecy\nof Habakkuk to the reign of Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in 1896.[321]\n\nBudde\u2019s very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to a\nsearching criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasises first the\ndifficulty of accounting for the transposition of chap. i. 5-11 from\nwhat Budde alleges to have been its original place after ii. 4 to\nits present position in chap. i.[322] He points out that if chap. i.\n2-4 and 12-17 and ii. 5 ff. refer to the Assyrian, it is strange the\nlatter is not once mentioned. Again, by 615 we may infer (though we\nknow little of Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrian\u2019s hold\non Judah was already too relaxed for the prophet to impute to him\npower to hinder the Law, especially as Josiah had begun to carry his\nreforms into the northern kingdom; and the knowledge of the Chaldeans\ndisplayed in i. 5-11 is too fresh and detailed[323] to suit so early a\ndate: it was possible only after the battle of Carchemish. And again,\nit is improbable that we have two different nations, as Budde thinks,\ndescribed by the very similar phrases in i. 11, _his own power becomes\nhis god_, and in i. 16, _he sacrifices to his net_. Again, chap. i.\n5-11 would not read quite naturally after chap. ii. 4. And in the woes\npronounced on the oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans, which\nare to spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples (ii. 7, 8).\n\nThese objections are not inconsiderable. But are they conclusive? And\nif not, is any of the other theories of the prophecy less beset with\ndifficulties?\n\nThe objections are scarcely conclusive. We have no proof that the power\nof Assyria was altogether removed from Judah by 615; on the contrary,\neven in 608 Assyria was still the power with which Egypt went forth\nto contend for the empire of the world. Seven years earlier her hand\nmay well have been strong upon Palestine. Again, by 615 the Chaldeans,\na people famous in Western Asia for a long time, had been ten years\nindependent: men in Palestine may have been familiar with their methods\nof warfare; at least it is impossible to say they were not.[324] There\nis more weight in the objection drawn from the absence of the name of\nAssyria from all of the passages which Budde alleges describe it; nor\ndo we get over all difficulties of text by inserting i. 5-11 between\nii. 4 and 5. Besides, how does Budde explain i. 12_b_ on the theory\nthat it means Assyria? Is the clause not premature at that point? Does\nhe propose to elide it, like Wellhausen? And in any case an erroneous\ntransposition of the original is impossible to prove and difficult to\naccount for.[325]\n\nBut have not the other theories of the Book of Habakkuk equally great\ndifficulties? Surely, we cannot say that the _righteous_ and the\n_wicked_ in i. 4 mean something different from what they do in i. 13?\nBut if this is impossible the construction of the book supported\nby the great majority of critics[326] falls to the ground. Professor\nDavidson justly says that it has \u201csomething artificial in it\u201d and \u201cputs\na strain on the natural sense.\u201d[327] How can the Chaldeans be described\nin i. 5 as _just about to be raised up_, and in 14-17 as already for\na long time the devastators of earth? Ewald\u2019s, Hitzig\u2019s and K\u00f6nig\u2019s\nviews[328] are equally beset by these difficulties; K\u00f6nig\u2019s exposition\nalso \u201cstrains the natural sense.\u201d Everything, in fact, points to i. 5-11\nbeing out of its proper place; it is no wonder that Giesebrecht,\nWellhausen and Budde independently arrived at this conclusion.[329]\nWhether Budde be right in inserting i. 5-11 after ii. 4, there can be\nlittle doubt of the correctness of his views that i. 12-17 describe a\nheathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde says this oppressor\nis Assyria. Can he be any one else? From 608 to 605 Judah was sorely\nbeset by Egypt, who had overrun all Syria up to the Euphrates. The\nEgyptians killed Josiah, deposed his successor, and put their own\nvassal under a very heavy tribute; _gold and silver were exacted of the\npeople of the land_: the picture of distress in i. 1-4 might easily\nbe that of Judah in these three terrible years. And if we assigned\nthe prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a date at which the\nknowledge of the Chaldeans expressed in i. 5-11 was more probable than\nat Budde\u2019s date of 615. But then does the description in chap, i. 14-17\nsuit Egypt so well as it does Assyria? We can hardly affirm this, until\nwe know more of what Egypt did in those days, but it is very probable.\n\nTherefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being\nunnatural, we are, with our present meagre knowledge of the time, flung\nback upon Budde\u2019s interpretation that the prophet in i. 2\u2014ii. 4 appeals\nfrom oppression by a heathen power, which is not the Chaldean, but upon\nwhich the Chaldean shall bring the just vengeance of God. The tyrant is\neither Assyria up to about 615 or Egypt from 608 to 605, and there is\nnot a little to be said for the latter date.\n\nIn arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about i.\u2014ii. 4, we have but\nthese consolations, that no other is possible in our present knowledge,\nand that the uncertainty will not hamper us much in our appreciation of\nHabakkuk\u2019s spiritual attitude and poetic gifts.[330]\n\n\n 2. CHAP. II. 5-20.\n\nThe dramatic piece i. 2\u2014ii. 4 is succeeded by a series of fine\ntaunt-songs, starting after an introduction from 6_b_, then 9, 11, 15\nand (18) 19, and each opening with _Woe!_ Their subject is, if we take\nBudde\u2019s interpretation of the dramatic piece, the Assyrian and not the\nChaldean[331] tyrant. The text, as we shall see when we come to it,\nis corrupt. Some words are manifestly wrong, and the rhythm must have\nsuffered beyond restoration. In all probability these fine lyric Woes,\nor at least as many of them as are authentic\u2014for there is doubt about\none or two\u2014were of equal length. Whether they all originally had the\nrefrain now attached to two is more doubtful.\n\nHitzig suspected the authenticity of some parts of this series of\nsongs. Stade[332] and Kuenen have gone further and denied the\ngenuineness of vv. 9-20. But this is with little reason. As Budde says,\na series of Woes was to be expected here by a prophet who follows so\nmuch the example of Isaiah.[333] In spite of Kuenen\u2019s objection, vv.\n9-11 would not be strange of the Chaldean, but they suit the Assyrian\nbetter. Vv. 12-14 are doubtful: 12 recalls Micah iii. 10; 13 is a\nrepetition of Jer. li. 58; 14 is a variant of Isa. xi. 9. Very likely\nJer. li. 58, a late passage, is borrowed from this passage; yet the\naddition used here, _Are not these things[334] from the Lord of Hosts?_\nlooks as if it noted a citation. Vv. 15-17 are very suitable to the\nAssyrian; there is no reason to take them from Habakkuk.[335] The final\nsong, vv. 18 and 19, has its Woe at the beginning of its second verse,\nand closely resembles the language of later prophets.[336] Moreover the\nrefrain forms a suitable close at the end of ver. 17. Ver. 20 is a\nquotation from Zephaniah,[337] perhaps another sign of the composite\ncharacter of the end of this chapter. Some take it to have been\ninserted as an introduction to the theophany in chap. iii.\n\nSmend has drawn up a defence[338] of the whole passage, ii. 9-20, which\nhe deems not only to stand in a natural relation to vv. 4-8, but to be\nindispensable to them. That the passage quotes from other prophets, he\nholds to be no proof against its authenticity. If we break off with\nver. 8, he thinks that we must impute to Habakkuk the opinion that the\nwrongs of the world are chiefly avenged by human means\u2014a conclusion\nwhich is not to be expected after chap. i.\u2014ii. 1 ff.\n\n\n 3. CHAP. III.\n\nThe third chapter, an Ode or Rhapsody, is ascribed to Habakkuk by\nits title. This, however, does not prove its authenticity: the title\nis too like those assigned to the Psalms in the period of the Second\nTemple.[339] On the contrary, the title itself, the occurrence of the\nmusical sign Selah in the contents, and the colophon suggest for the\nchapter a liturgical origin after the Exile.[340] That this is more\nprobable than the alternative opinion, that, being a genuine work of\nHabakkuk, the chapter was afterwards arranged as a Psalm for public\nworship, is confirmed by the fact that no other work of the prophets\nhas been treated in the same way. Nor do the contents support the\nauthorship by Habakkuk. They reflect no definite historical situation\nlike the preceding chapters. The style and temper are different. While\nin them the prophet speaks for himself, here it is the nation or\ncongregation of Israel that addresses God. The language is not, as some\nhave maintained, late;[341] but the designation of the people as _Thine\nanointed_, a term which before the Exile was applied to the king,\nundoubtedly points to a post-exilic date. The figures, the theophany\nitself, are not necessarily archaic, but are more probably moulded on\narchaic models. There are many affinities with Psalms of a late date.\n\nAt the same time a number of critics[342] maintain the genuineness of\nthe chapter, and they have some grounds for this. Habakkuk was, as we\ncan see from chaps. i. and ii., a real poet. There was no need why\na man of his temper should be bound down to reflecting only his own\nday. If so practical a prophet as Hosea, and one who has so closely\nidentified himself with his times, was wont to escape from them to a\nretrospect of the dealings of God with Israel from of old, why should\nnot the same be natural for a prophet who was much less practical and\nmore literary and artistic? There are also many phrases in the Psalm\nwhich may be interpreted as reflecting the same situation as chaps. i.,\nii. All this, however, only proves possibility.\n\nThe Psalm has been adapted in Psalm lxxvii. 17-20.\n\n\n FURTHER NOTE ON CHAP. I.\u2014II. 4.\n\n Since this chapter was in print Nowack\u2019s _Die Kleinen Propheten_\n in the \u201cHandkommentar z. A. T.\u201d has been published. He recognises\n emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, chap.\n i. 5-11, is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the\n other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits that it follows on,\n with a natural connection, to chap. ii. 4, to which Budde proposes to\n attach it. Nevertheless, for other reasons, which he does not state,\n he regards Budde\u2019s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed\n passage to be by another hand than Habakkuk\u2019s, and intruded into\n the latter\u2019s argument. Habakkuk\u2019s argument he assigns to after 605;\n perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would therefore be the\n Chaldean.\u2014Driver in the 6th ed. of his _Introduction_ (1897) deems\n Budde\u2019s argument \u201ctoo ingenious,\u201d and holds by the older and most\n numerously supported argument (above, pp. 116 ff.).\u2014On a review of\n the case in the light of these two discussions, the present writer\n holds to his opinion that Budde\u2019s rearrangement, which he has adopted,\n offers the fewest difficulties.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[313] Except one or two critics who place it in Manasseh\u2019s reign. See\nbelow.\n\n[314] See next note.\n\n[315] So Pusey. Delitzsch in his commentary on Habakkuk, 1843,\npreferred Josiah\u2019s reign, but in his _O. T. Hist. of Redemption_, 1881,\np. 226, Manasseh\u2019s. Volck (in Herzog, _Real Encyc._,\u00b2 art. \u201cHabakkuk,\u201d\n1879), assuming that Habakkuk is quoted both by Zephaniah (see above,\np. 39, n.) and Jeremiah, places him before these. Sinker (_The Psalm\nof Habakkuk_: see below, p. 127, n. 2) deems \u201cthe prophecy, taken as a\nwhole,\u201d to bring \u201cbefore us the threat of the Chaldean invasion, the\nhorrors that follow in its train,\u201d etc., with a vision of the day \u201cwhen\nthe Chaldean host itself, its work done, falls beneath a mightier foe.\u201d\nHe fixes the date either in the concluding years of Manasseh\u2019s reign,\nor the opening years of that of Josiah (Preface, 1-4).\n\n[316] Pages 53, 49. Kirkpatrick (Smith\u2019s _Dict. of the Bible_,\u00b2 art.\n\u201cHabakkuk,\u201d 1893) puts it not later than the sixth year of Jehoiakim.\n\n[317] _Einl. in das A. T._\n\n[318] _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Jesaiakritik_, 1890, pp. 197 f.\n\n[319] See Further Note on p. 128.\n\n[320] _Studien u. Kritiken_ for 1893.\n\n[321] Cf. the opening of \u00a7 30 in the first edition of his _Einleitung_\nwith that of \u00a7 34 in the third and fourth editions.\n\n[322] Budde\u2019s explanation of this is, that to the later editors of the\nbook, long after the Babylonian destruction of Jews, it was incredible\nthat the Chaldean should be represented as the deliverer of Israel, and\nso the account of him was placed where, while his call to punish Israel\nfor her sins was not emphasised, he should be pictured as destined to\ndoom; and so the prophecy originally referring to the Assyrian was read\nof him. \u201cThis is possible,\u201d says Davidson, \u201cif it be true criticism is\nnot without its romance.\u201d\n\n[323] This in opposition to Budde\u2019s statement that the description of\nthe Chaldeans in i. 5-11 \u201cist eine phantastische Schilderung\u201d (p. 387).\n\n[324] It is, however, a serious question whether it would be possible\nin 615 to describe the Chaldeans as _a nation that traversed the\nbreadth of the earth to occupy dwelling-places that were not his own_\n(i. 6). This suits better after the battle of Carchemish.\n\n[325] See above, p. 121, n. 322.\n\n[326] See above, pp. 114 ff.\n\n[327] Pages 49 and 50.\n\n[328] See above, pp. 118 f.\n\n[329] Wellhausen in 1873 (see p. 661); Giesebrecht in 1890; Budde in\n1892, before he had seen the opinions of either of the others (see\n_Stud. und Krit._, 1893, p. 386, n. 2).\n\n[330] Cornill quotes a rearrangement of chaps, i., ii., by Rothstein,\nwho takes i. 2-4, 12 _a_, 13, ii. 1-3, 4, 5 _a_, i. 6-10, 14, 15 _a_,\nii. 6 _b_, 7, 9, 10 _a_ _b_ \u03b2, 11, 15, 16, 19, 18, as an oracle against\nJehoiakim and the godless in Israel about 605, which during the Exile\nwas worked up into the present oracle against Babylon. Cornill esteems\nit \u201ctoo complicated.\u201d Budde (_Expositor_, 1895, pp. 372 ff.) and Nowack\nhold it untenable.\n\n[331] As of course was universally supposed according to either of the\nother two interpretations given above.\n\n[332] _Z.A.T.W._, 1884, p. 154.\n\n[333] Cf. Isa. v. 8 ff. (x. 1-4), etc.\n\n[334] So LXX.\n\n[335] Cf. Davidson, p. 56, and Budde, p. 391, who allows 9-11 and 15-17.\n\n[336] _E.g._ Isa. xl. 18 ff., xliv. 9 ff., xlvi. 5 ff., etc. On this\nground it is condemned by Stade, Kuenen and Budde. Davidson finds this\nnot a serious difficulty, for, he points out, Habakkuk anticipates\nseveral later lines of thought.\n\n[337] See above, p. 39, n.\n\n[338] _A. T. Religionsgeschichte_, p. 229, n. 2.\n\n[339] Cf. the ascription by the LXX. of Psalms cxlvi.-cl. to the\nprophets Haggai and Zechariah.\n\n[340] Cf. Kuenen, who conceives it to have been taken from a\npost-exilic collection of Psalms. See also Cheyne, _The Origin of the\nPsalter_: \u201cexilic or more probably post-exilic\u201d (p. 125). \u201cThe most\nnatural position for it is in the Persian period. It was doubtless\nappended to Habakkuk, for the same reason for which Isa. lxiii. 7\u2014lxiv.\nwas attached to the great prophecy of Restoration, viz. that the\nearlier national troubles seemed to the Jewish Church to be typical\nof its own sore troubles after the Return.... The lovely closing\nverses of Hab. iii. are also in a tone congenial to the later religion\u201d\n(p. 156). Much less certain is the assertion that the language is\nimitative and artificial (_ibid._); while the statement that in ver.\n3\u2014cf. with Deut. xxxiii. 2\u2014we have an instance of the effort to avoid\nthe personal name of the Deity (p. 287) is disproved by the use of the\nlatter in ver. 2 and other verses.\n\n[341]\u200e \u05d9\u05e9\u05e2 \u05d0\u05ea, ver. 13, cannot be taken as a proof of lateness;\nread probably \u05d4\u05d5\u05e9\u05d9\u05e2 \u05d0\u05ea.\n\n[342] Pusey, Ewald, K\u00f6nig, Sinker (_The Psalm of Habakkuk_, Cambridge,\n1890), Kirkpatrick (Smith\u2019s _Bible Dict._, art. \u201cHabakkuk\u201d), Von Orelli.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X\n\n _THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC_\n\n HABAKKUK i.\u2014ii. 4\n\n\nOf the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his\nname\u2014to our ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form of a\nroot which means to caress or embrace. More probably it was given to\nhim as a child, than afterwards assumed as a symbol of his clinging to\nGod.[343]\n\nTradition says that Habakkuk was a priest, the son of Joshua, of the\ntribe of Levi, but this is only an inference from the late liturgical\nnotes to the Psalm which has been appended to his prophecy.[344] All\nthat we know for certain is that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah,\nwith a sensitiveness under wrong and impulses to question God which\nremind us of Jeremiah; but with a literary power which is quite his\nown. We may emphasise the latter, even though we recognise upon his\nwriting the influence of Isaiah\u2019s.\n\nHabakkuk\u2019s originality, however, is deeper than style. He is the\nearliest who is known to us of a new school of religion in Israel. He\nis called _prophet_, but at first he does not adopt the attitude which\nis characteristic of the prophets. His face is set in an opposite\ndirection to theirs. They address the nation Israel, on behalf of God:\nhe rather speaks to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel\u2019s\nsin, the proclamation of God\u2019s doom and the offer of His grace to their\npenitence. Habakkuk\u2019s task is God Himself, the effort to find out\nwhat He means by permitting tyranny and wrong. They attack the sins,\nhe is the first to state the problems, of life. To him the prophetic\nrevelation, the Torah, is complete: it has been codified in Deuteronomy\nand enforced by Josiah. Habakkuk\u2019s business is not to add to it but\nto ask why it does not work. Why does God suffer wrong to triumph,\nso that the Torah is paralysed, and Mishpat, the prophetic _justice_\nor _judgment_, comes to nought? The prophets travailed for Israel\u2019s\ncharacter\u2014to get the people to love justice till justice prevailed\namong them: Habakkuk feels justice cannot prevail in Israel, because of\nthe great disorder which God permits to fill the world. It is true that\nhe arrives at a prophetic attitude, and before the end authoritatively\ndeclares God\u2019s will; but he begins by searching for the latter, with\nan appreciation of the great obscurity cast over it by the facts of\nlife. He complains to God, asks questions and expostulates. This is\nthe beginning of speculation in Israel. It does not go far: it is\nsatisfied with stating questions _to_ God; it does not, directly at\nleast, state questions _against_ Him. But Habakkuk at least feels that\nrevelation is baffled by experience, that the facts of life bewilder a\nman who believes in the God whom the prophets have declared to Israel.\nAs in Zephaniah prophecy begins to exhibit traces of apocalypse, so in\nHabakkuk we find it developing the first impulses of speculation.\n\nWe have seen that the course of events which troubles Habakkuk\nand renders the Torah ineffectual is somewhat obscure. On one\ninterpretation of these two chapters, that which takes the present\norder of their verses as the original, Habakkuk asks why God is silent\nin face of the injustice which fills the whole horizon (chap. i. 1-4),\nis told to look round among the heathen and see how God is raising up\nthe Chaldeans (i. 5-11), presumably to punish this injustice (if it be\nIsrael\u2019s own) or to overthrow it (if vv. 1-4 mean that it is inflicted\non Israel by a foreign power). But the Chaldeans only aggravate the\nprophet\u2019s problem; they themselves are a wicked and oppressive people:\nhow can God suffer them? (i. 12-17). Then come the prophet\u2019s waiting\nfor an answer (ii. 1) and the answer itself (ii. 2 ff.). Another\ninterpretation takes the passage about the Chaldeans (i. 5-11) to be\nout of place where it now lies, removes it to after chap. ii. 4 as a\npart of God\u2019s answer to the prophet\u2019s problem, and leaves the remainder\nof chap. i. as the description of the Assyrian oppression of Israel,\nbaffling the Torah and perplexing the prophet\u2019s faith in a Holy and\nJust God.[345] Of these two views the former is, we have seen, somewhat\nartificial, and though the latter is by no means proved, the arguments\nfor it are sufficient to justify us in re-arranging the verses chap.\ni.\u2014ii. 4 in accordance with its proposals.\n\n _The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet\n Received by Vision._[346]\n\n _How long, O Jehovah, have I called and Thou hearest not?\n I cry to Thee, Wrong! and Thou sendest no help.\n Why make me look upon sorrow,\n And fill mine eyes with trouble?\n Violence and wrong are before me,\n Strife comes and quarrel arises.[347]\n So the Law is benumbed, and judgment never gets forth:[348]\n For the wicked beleaguers the righteous,\n So judgment comes forth perverted._[349]\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Art not Thou of old, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One?...[350]\n Purer of eyes than to behold evil,\n And that canst not gaze upon trouble!\n Why gazest Thou upon traitors,[351]\n Art dumb when the wicked swallows him that is\n more righteous than he?[352]\n Thou hast let men be made[353] like fish of the sea,\n Like worms that have no ruler![354]\n He lifts the whole of it with his angle;\n Draws it in with his net, sweeps it in his drag-net:\n So rejoices and exults.\n So he sacrifices to his net, and offers incense to his drag-net;\n For by them is his portion fat, and his food rich.\n Shall he for ever draw his sword,[355]\n And ceaselessly, ruthlessly massacre nations?[356]_\n\n _Upon my watch-tower I will stand,\n And take my post on the rampart.[357]\n I will watch to see what He will say to me,\n And what answer I[358] get back to my plea._\n\n _And Jehovah answered me and said:\n Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets,\n That he may run who reads it.\n For[359] the vision is for a time yet to be fixed,\n Yet it hurries[360] to the end, and shall not fail:\n Though it linger, wait thou for it;\n Coming it shall come, and shall not be behind.[361]\n Lo! swollen,[362] not level is his[363] soul within him;\n But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.[364]_\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Look[365] round among the heathen, and look well,\n Shudder and be shocked;[366]\n For I am[367] about to do a work in your days,\n Ye shall not believe it when told.\n For, lo, I am about to raise up the Kasdim,[368]\n A people the most bitter and the most hasty,\n That traverse the breadths of the earth,\n To possess dwelling-places not their own.\n Awful and terrible are they;\n From themselves[369] start their purpose and rising.\n Fleeter than leopards their steeds,\n Swifter than night-wolves.\n Their horsemen leap[370] from afar;\n They swoop like the eagle a-haste to devour.\n All for wrong do they[371] come;\n The set of their faces is forward,[372]\n And they sweep up captives like sand.\n They\u2014at kings do they scoff,\n And princes are sport to them.\n They\u2014they laugh at each fortress,\n Heap dust up and take it!\n Then the wind shifts,[373] and they pass!\n But doomed are those whose own strength is their god![374]_\n\nThe difficulty of deciding between the various arrangements of the\ntwo chapters of Habakkuk does not, fortunately, prevent us from\nappreciating his argument. What he feels throughout (this is obvious,\nhowever you arrange his verses) is the tyranny of a great heathen\npower,[375] be it Assyrian, Egyptian or Chaldean. The prophet\u2019s horizon\nis filled with wrong:[376] Israel thrown into disorder, revelation\nparalysed, justice perverted.[377] But, like Nahum, Habakkuk feels not\nfor Israel alone. The Tyrant has outraged humanity.[378] He _sweeps\npeoples into his net_, and as soon as he empties this, he fills it\nagain _ceaselessly_, as if there were no just God above. He exults in\nhis vast cruelty, and has success so unbroken that he worships the very\nmeans of it. In itself such impiety is gross enough, but to a heart\nthat believes in God it is a problem of exquisite pain. Habakkuk\u2019s is\nthe burden of the finest faith. He illustrates the great commonplace of\nreligious doubt, that problems arise and become rigorous in proportion\nto the purity and tenderness of a man\u2019s conception of God. It is\nnot the coarsest but the finest temperaments which are exposed to\nscepticism. Every advance in assurance of God or in appreciation of His\ncharacter develops new perplexities in face of the facts of experience,\nand faith becomes her own most cruel troubler. Habakkuk\u2019s questions\nare not due to any cooling of the religious temper in Israel, but are\nbegotten of the very heat and ardour of prophecy in its encounter with\nexperience. His tremulousness, for instance, is impossible without the\nhigh knowledge of God\u2019s purity and faithfulness, which older prophets\nhad achieved in Israel:\u2014\n\n _Art not Thou of old, O LORD, my God, my Holy One,\n Purer of eyes than to behold evil,\n And incapable of looking upon wrong?_\n\nHis despair is that which comes only from eager and persevering habits\nof prayer:\u2014\n\n _How long, O LORD, have I called and Thou hearest not!\n I cry to Thee of wrong and Thou givest no help!_\n\nHis questions, too, are bold with that sense of God\u2019s absolute power,\nwhich flashed so bright in Israel as to blind men\u2019s eyes to all\nsecondary and intermediate causes. _Thou_, he says,\u2014\n\n _Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea,\n Like worms that have no ruler_,\n\nboldly charging the Almighty, in almost the temper of Job himself,\nwith being the cause of the cruelty inflicted by the unchecked tyrant\nupon the nations; _for shall evil happen, and Jehovah not have done\nit_?[379] Thus all through we perceive that Habakkuk\u2019s trouble springs\nfrom the central founts of prophecy. This scepticism\u2014if we may venture\nto give the name to the first motions in Israel\u2019s mind of that temper\nwhich undoubtedly became scepticism\u2014this scepticism was the inevitable\nheritage of prophecy: the stress and pain to which prophecy was forced\nby its own strong convictions in face of the facts of experience.\nHabakkuk, _the prophet_, as he is called, stood in the direct line of\nhis order, but just because of that he was the father also of Israel\u2019s\nreligious doubt.\n\nBut a discontent springing from sources so pure was surely the\npreparation of its own healing. In a verse of exquisite beauty the\nprophet describes the temper in which he trusted for an answer to all\nhis doubts:\u2014\n\n _On my watch-tower will I stand,\n And take up my post on the rampart;\n I will watch to see what He says to me,\n And what answer I get back to my plea._\n\nThis verse is not to be passed over, as if its metaphors were merely\nof literary effect. They express rather the moral temper in which\nthe prophet carries his doubt, or, to use New Testament language,\n_the good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith\nhave made shipwreck_. Nor is this temper patience only and a certain\nelevation of mind, nor only a fixed attention and sincere willingness\nto be answered. Through the chosen words there breathes a noble\nsense of responsibility. The prophet feels he has a post to hold, a\nrampart to guard. He knows the heritage of truth, won by the great\nminds of the past; and in a world seething with disorder, he will\ntake his stand upon that and see what more his God will send him. At\nthe very least, he will not indolently drift, but feel that he has a\nstandpoint, however narrow, and bravely hold it. Such has ever been the\nattitude of the greatest sceptics\u2014not only, let us repeat, earnestness\nand sincerity, but the recognition of duty towards the truth: the\nconviction that even the most tossed and troubled minds have somewhere\na \u03c0\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6 appointed of God, and upon it interests human and divine to\ndefend. Without such a conscience, scepticism, however intellectually\ngifted, will avail nothing. Men who drift never discover, never grasp\naught. They are only dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only\nfretted and broken by experience.\n\nTaking then his stand within the patient temper, but especially\nupon the conscience of his great order, the prophet waits for his\nanswer and the healing of his trouble. The answer comes to him in the\npromise of _a Vision_, which, though it seem to linger, will not be\nlater than the time fixed by God. _A Vision_ is something realised,\nexperienced\u2014something that will be as actual and present to the\nwaiting prophet as the cruelty which now fills his sight. Obviously\nsome series of historical events is meant, by which, in the course of\ntime, the unjust oppressor of the nations shall be overthrown and the\nrighteous vindicated. Upon the re-arrangement of the text proposed by\nBudde,[380] this series of events is the rise of the Chaldeans, and it\nis an argument in favour of his proposal that the promise of _a Vision_\nrequires some such historical picture to follow it as we find in the\ndescription of the Chaldeans\u2014chap. i. 5-11. This, too, is explicitly\nintroduced by terms of vision: _See among the nations and look\nround.... Yea, behold I am about to raise up the Kasdim._ But before\nthis Vision is given,[381] and for the uncertain interval of waiting\nere the facts come to pass, the Lord enforces upon His watching servant\nthe great moral principle that arrogance and tyranny cannot, from the\nnature of them, last, and that if the righteous be only patient he will\nsurvive them:\u2014\n\n _Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him;\n But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness._\n\nWe have already seen[382] that the text of the first line of this\ncouplet is uncertain. Yet the meaning is obvious, partly in the words\nthemselves, and partly by their implied contrast with the second\nline. The soul of the wicked is a radically morbid thing: _inflated_,\n_swollen_ (unless we should read _perverted_, which more plainly means\nthe same thing[383]), not _level_, not natural and normal. In the\nnature of things it cannot endure. _But the righteous shall live by\nhis faithfulness._ This word, wrongly translated _faith_ by the Greek\nand other versions, is concentrated by Paul in his repeated quotation\nfrom the Greek[384] upon that single act of faith by which the sinner\nsecures forgiveness and justification. With Habakkuk it is a wider\nterm. _\u2019Emunah_,[385] from a verb meaning originally to be firm, is\nused in the Old Testament in the physical sense of steadfastness.\nSo it is applied to the arms of Moses held up by Aaron and Hur over\nthe battle with Amalek: _they were steadiness till the going down of\nthe sun_.[386] It is also used of the faithful discharge of public\noffice,[387] and of fidelity as between man and wife.[388] It is also\nfaithful testimony,[389] equity in judgment,[390] truth in speech,[391]\nand sincerity or honest dealing.[392] Of course it has faith in God\nas its secret\u2014the verb from which it is derived is the regular Hebrew\nterm to believe\u2014but it is rather the temper which faith produces of\nendurance, steadfastness, integrity. Let the righteous, however baffled\nhis faith be by experience, hold on in loyalty to God and duty, and he\nshall live. Though St. Paul, as we have said, used the Greek rendering\nof _faith_ for the enforcement of trust in God\u2019s mercy through\nJesus Christ as the secret of forgiveness and life, it is rather to\nHabakkuk\u2019s wider intention of patience and fidelity that the author\nof the Epistle to the Hebrews returns in his fuller quotation of the\nverse: _For yet a little while and He that shall come will come and\nwill not tarry; now the just shall live by faith, but if he draw back\nMy soul shall have no pleasure in him._[393]\n\nSuch then is the tenor of the passage. In face of experience that\nbaffles faith, the duty of Israel is patience in loyalty to God.\nIn this the nascent scepticism of Israel received its first great\ncommandment, and this it never forsook. Intellectual questions arose,\nof which Habakkuk\u2019s were but the faintest foreboding\u2014questions\nconcerning not only the mission and destiny of the nation, but the\nvery foundation of justice and the character of God Himself. Yet\ndid no sceptic, however bold and however provoked, forsake his\n_faithfulness_. Even Job, when most audaciously arraigning the God of\nhis experience, turned from Him to God as in his heart of hearts he\nbelieved He must be, experience notwithstanding. Even the Preacher,\namid the aimless flux and drift which he finds in the universe, holds\nto the conclusion of the whole matter in a command, which better\nthan any other defines the contents of the _faithfulness_ enforced\nby Habakkuk: _Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the\nwhole of man._ It has been the same with the great mass of the race.\nRepeatedly disappointed of their hopes, and crushed for ages beneath\nan intolerable tyranny, have they not exhibited the same heroic temper\nwith which their first great questioner was endowed? Endurance\u2014this\nabove all others has been the quality of Israel: _though He slay me,\nyet will I trust Him_. And, therefore, as Paul\u2019s adaptation, _The just\nshall live by faith_, has become the motto of evangelical Christianity,\nso we may say that Habakkuk\u2019s original of it has been the motto and the\nfame of Judaism: _The righteous shall live by his faithfulness._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[343]\u200e \u05d7\u05b2\u05d1\u05b7\u05e7\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e7 (the Greek \u1f09\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc, LXX. version of the title of this\nbook, and again the inscription to _Bel and the Dragon_, suggests the\npointing \u05d7\u05b7\u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05e7\u05d5\u05bc\u05e7; Epiph., _De Vitis Proph._\u2014see next note\u2014spells it\n\u1f09\u03b2\u03b2\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc), from \u05d7\u05d1\u05e7, _to embrace_. Jerome: \u201cHe is called \u2018embrace\u2019\neither because of his love to the Lord, or because he wrestles with\nGod.\u201d Luther: \u201cHabakkuk means one who comforts and holds up his people\nas one embraces a weeping person.\u201d\n\n[344] See above, pp. 126 ff. The title to the Greek version of _Bel\nand the Dragon_ bears that the latter was taken from the prophecy of\nHambakoum, son of Jesus, of the tribe of Levi. Further details are\noffered in the _De Vitis Prophetarum_ of (Pseud-) Epiphanius, _Epiph.\nOpera_, ed. Paris, 1622, Vol. II., p. 147, according to which Habakkuk\nbelonged to \u0392\u03b5\u03b8\u03b6\u03bf\u03c7\u03b7\u03c1, which is probably \u0392\u03b5\u03b8\u03b6\u03b1\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2 of 1 Macc. vi. 32,\nthe modern Beit-Zakaryeh, a little to the north of Hebron, and placed\nby this notice, as Nahum\u2019s Elkosh is placed, in the tribe of Simeon.\nHis grave was shown in the neighbouring Keilah. The notice further\nalleges that when Nebuchadrezzar came up to Jerusalem Habakkuk fled to\nOstracine, where he travelled in the country of the Ishmaelites; but he\nreturned after the fall of Jerusalem, and died in 538, two years before\nthe return of the exiles. _Bel and the Dragon_ tells an extraordinary\nstory of his miraculous carriage of food to Daniel in the lions\u2019 den\nsoon after Cyrus had taken Babylon.\n\n[345] See above, pp. 119 ff.\n\n[346] Heb. _saw_.\n\n[347] Text uncertain. Perhaps we should read, _Why make me look upon\nsorrow and trouble? why fill mine eyes with violence and wrong? Strife\nis come before me, and quarrel arises_.\n\n[348] _Never gets away_, to use a colloquial expression.\n\n[349] Here vv. 5-11 come in the original.\n\n[350] Ver. 12_b_: _We shall not die_ (many Jewish authorities read\n_Thou shalt not die_). _O Jehovah, for judgment hast Thou set him, and,\nO my Rock, for punishment hast Thou appointed him._\n\n[351] Wellhausen: _on the robbery of robbers_.\n\n[352] LXX. _devoureth the righteous_.\n\n[353] Literally _Thou hast made men_.\n\n[354] Wellhausen: cf. Jer. xviii. 1, xix. 1.\n\n[355] So Giesebrecht (see above, p. 119, n. 318), reading \u05d4\u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd \u05d9\u05e8\u05d9\u05e7\n\u05d7\u05e8\u05d1\u05d5 for \u05d4\u05e2\u05dc\u05be\u05db\u05df \u05d9\u05e8\u05d9\u05e7 \u05d7\u05e8\u05de\u05d5, _shall he therefore empty his net?_\n\n[356] Wellhausen, reading \u05d9\u05d4\u05e8\u05d2 for \u05dc\u05d4\u05e8\u05d2: _should he therefore be\nemptying his net continually, and slaughtering the nations without\npity?_\n\n[357]\u200e \u05de\u05e6\u05d5\u05e8. But Wellhausen takes it as from \u05e0\u05e6\u05e8 and = _ward_ or\n_watch-tower_. So Nowack.\n\n[358] So Heb. and LXX.; but Syr. _he_: so Wellhausen, _what answer He\nreturns to my plea_.\n\n[359] Bredenkamp (_Stud. u. Krit._, 1889, pp. 161 ff.) suggests that\nthe writing on the tablets begins here and goes on to ver. 5_a_. Budde\n(_Z.A.T.W._, 1889, pp. 155 f.) takes the \u05db\u05d9 which opens it as simply\nequivalent to the Greek \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9, introducing, like our marks of quotation,\nthe writing itself.\n\n[360]\u200e \u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05e4\u05b5\u05d7\u05b7: cf. Psalm xxvii. 12. Bredenkamp emends to \u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b4\u05e4\u05b0\u05e8\u05b7\u05d7.\n\n[361] _Not be late_, or past its fixed time.\n\n[362] So literally the Heb. \u05e2\u05bb\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4, i.e. _arrogant_, _false_: cf.\nthe colloquial expression _swollen-head_ = conceit, as opposed to\nlevel-headed. Bredenkamp, _Stud. u. Krit._, 1889, 121, reads \u05d4\u05b7\u05e0\u05b6\u05e2\u05b1\u05dc\u05b8\u05e3\nfor \u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4 \u05e2\u05bb\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4. Wellhausen suggests \u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4 \u05d4\u05b6\u05e2\u05b7\u05d5\u05b8\u05dc, _Lo, the\nsinner_, in contrast to \u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7 of next clause. Nowack prefers this.\n\n[363] LXX. wrongly _my_.\n\n[364] LXX. \u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2, _faith_, and so in N. T.\n\n[365] Chap. i. 5-11.\n\n[366] So to bring out the assonance, reading \u05d4\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05de\u05b7\u05d4\u05b0\u05de\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc \u05d5\u05bc\u05ea\u05b4\u05de\u05b8\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc.\n\n[367] So LXX.\n\n[368] Or Chaldeans; on the name and people see above, p. 19.\n\n[369] Heb. singular.\n\n[370] Omit \u05d5\u05e4\u05e8\u05e9\u05d9\u05d5 (evidently a dittography) and the lame \u05d9\u05d1\u05d0\u05d5 which\nis omitted by LXX. and was probably inserted to afford a verb for the\nsecond \u05e4\u05e8\u05e9\u05d9\u05d5.\n\n[371] Heb. sing., and so in all the clauses here except the next.\n\n[372] A problematical rendering. \u05de\u05d2\u05de\u05d4 is found only here, and probably\nmeans _direction_. Hitzig translates _desire_, _effort_, _striving_.\n\u05e7\u05d3\u05d9\u05de\u05d4, _towards the front_ or _forward_; but elsewhere it means only\n_eastward_: \u05e7\u05d3\u05d9\u05dd, _the east wind_. Cf. Judg. v. 21, \u05e0\u05d7\u05dc \u05e7\u05d3\u05d5\u05de\u05d9\u05dd \u05e0\u05d7\u05dc\n\u05e7\u05d9\u05e9\u05d5\u05df, _a river of spates or rushes is the river Kishon_ (_Hist.\nGeog._, p. 395). Perhaps we should change \u05e4\u05e0\u05d9\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd to a singular suffix,\nas in the clauses before and after, and this would leave \u05de to form with\n\u05e7\u05d3\u05d9\u05de\u05d4 a participle from \u05d4\u05e7\u05d3\u05d9\u05dd (cf. Amos ix. 10).\n\n[373] Or _their spirit changes_, or _they change like the wind_\n(Wellhausen suggests \u05db\u05e8\u05d5\u05d7). Gr\u00e4tz reads \u05db\u05ba\u05bc\u05d7\u05b7 and \u05d9\u05b7\u05d7\u05b2\u05dc\u05b4\u05d9\u05e3, _he renews\nhis strength_.\n\n[374] Von Orelli. For \u05d0\u05e9\u05c1\u05dd Wellhausen proposes \u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05e9\u05b4\u05c2\u05dd, _and sets_.\n\n[375] _The wicked_ of chap. i. 4 must, as we have seen, be the same as\n_the wicked_ of chap. i. 13\u2014a heathen oppressor of _the righteous_,\n_i.e._ the people of God.\n\n[376] i. 3.\n\n[377] i. 4.\n\n[378] i. 13-17.\n\n[379] Amos iii. 6. See Vol. I., p. 90.\n\n[380] See above, pp. 119 ff.\n\n[381] Its proper place in Budde\u2019s re-arrangement is after chap. ii. 4.\n\n[382] Above, p. 134, n. 362.\n\n[383]\u200e \u05e2\u05bb\u05e7\u05b0\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4 instead of \u05e2\u05bb\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4.\n\n[384] Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 11.\n\n[385]\u200e \u05d0\u05b1\u05de\u05d5\u05bc\u05e0\u05b8\u05d4.\n\n[386] Exod. xvii. 12.\n\n[387] 2 Chron. xix. 9.\n\n[388] Hosea ii. 22 (Heb.).\n\n[389] Prov. xiv. 5.\n\n[390] Isa. xi. 5.\n\n[391] Prov. xii. 17: cf. Jer. ix. 2.\n\n[392] Prov. xii. 22, xxviii. 30.\n\n[393] Heb. x. 37, 38.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI\n\n _TYRANNY IS SUICIDE_\n\n HABAKKUK ii. 5-20\n\n\nIn the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows up his _Vision_\nwith a series of lyrics on the same subject: chap. ii. 5-20. They are\ntaunt-songs, the most of them beginning with _Woe unto_, addressed to\nthe heathen oppressor. Perhaps they were all at first of equal length,\nand it has been suggested that the striking refrain in which two of\nthem close\u2014\n\n _For men\u2019s blood, and earth\u2019s waste,\n Cities and their inhabitants_\u2014\n\nwas once attached to each of the others as well. But the text has been\ntoo much altered, besides suffering several interpolations,[394] to\npermit of its restoration, and we can only reproduce these taunts as\nthey now run in the Hebrew text. There are several quotations (not\nnecessarily an argument against Habakkuk\u2019s authorship); but, as a\nwhole, the expression is original, and there are some lines of especial\nforce and freshness. Verses 5-6_a_ are properly an introduction, the\nfirst Woe commencing with 6_b_.\n\nThe belief which inspires these songs is very simple. Tyranny is\nintolerable. In the nature of things it cannot endure, but works\nout its own penalties. By oppressing so many nations, the tyrant is\npreparing the instruments of his own destruction. As he treats them,\nso in time shall they treat him. He is like a debtor who increases the\nnumber of his creditors. Some day they shall rise up and exact from him\nthe last penny. So that in cutting off others he is _but forfeiting his\nown life_. The very violence done to nature, the deforesting of Lebanon\nfor instance, and the vast hunting of wild beasts, shall recoil on\nhim. This line of thought is exceedingly interesting. We have already\nseen in prophecy, and especially in Isaiah, the beginnings of Hebrew\nWisdom\u2014the attempt to uncover the moral processes of life and express\na philosophy of history. But hardly anywhere have we found so complete\nan absence of all reference to the direct interference of God Himself\nin the punishment of the tyrant; for _the cup of Jehovah\u2019s right\nhand_ in ver. 16 is simply the survival of an ancient metaphor. These\n_proverbs_ or _taunt-songs_, in conformity with the proverbs of the\nlater Wisdom, dwell only upon the inherent tendency to decay of all\ninjustice. Tyranny, they assert, and history ever since has affirmed\ntheir truthfulness\u2014tyranny is suicide.\n\nThe last of the taunt-songs, which treats of the different subject of\nidolatry, is probably, as we have seen, not from Habakkuk\u2019s hand, but\nof a later date.[395]\n\n\n INTRODUCTION TO THE TAUNT-SONGS (ii. 5-6_a_).\n\n _For ...[396] treacherous,\n An arrogant fellow, and is not ...[397]\n Who opens his desire wide as Sheol;\n He is like death, unsatisfied;\n And hath swept to himself all the nations,\n And gathered to him all peoples.\n Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb upon him,\n And a taunt-song against him? and say:\u2014_\n\n\n FIRST TAUNT-SONG (ii. 6_b_-8).\n\n _Woe unto him who multiplies what is not his own,\n \u2014How long?\u2014\n And loads him with debts![398]\n Shall not thy creditors[399] rise up,\n And thy troublers awake,\n And thou be for spoil[400] to them?\n Because thou hast spoiled many nations,\n All the rest of the peoples shall spoil thee.\n For men\u2019s blood, and earth\u2019s waste,\n Cities and all their inhabitants._[401]\n\n\n SECOND TAUNT-SONG (ii. 9-11).\n\n _Woe unto him that gains evil gain for his house,[402]\n To set high his nest, to save him from the grasp of calamity!\n Thou hast planned shame for thy house;\n Thou hast cut off[403] many people,\n While forfeiting thine own life.[404]\n For the stone shall cry out from the wall,\n And the lath[405] from the timber answer it._\n\n\n THIRD TAUNT-SONG (ii. 12-14).\n\n _Woe unto him that builds a city in blood,[406]\n And stablishes a town in iniquity![407]\n Lo, is it not from Jehovah of hosts,\n That the nations shall toil for smoke,[408]\n And the peoples wear themselves out for nought?\n But earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the\n glory of Jehovah,[409]\n Like the waters that cover the sea._\n\n\n FOURTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 15-17).\n\n _Woe unto him that gives his neighbour to drink,\n From the cup of his wrath[410] till he be drunken,\n That he may gloat on his[411] nakedness!\n Thou art sated with shame\u2014not with glory;\n Drink also thou, and stagger.[412]\n Comes round to thee the cup of Jehovah\u2019s right hand,\n And foul shame[413] on thy glory.\n For the violence to Leb\u0101non shall cover thee,\n The destruction of the beasts shall affray thee.[414]\n For men\u2019s blood, and earth\u2019s waste,\n Cities and all their inhabitants.[415]_\n\n\n FIFTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 18-20).\n\n _What boots an image, when its artist has graven it,\n A cast-image and lie-oracle, that its moulder has trusted upon it,\n Making dumb idols?\n Woe to him that saith to a block, Awake!\n To a dumb stone, Arise!\n Can it teach?\n Lo, it ...[416] with gold and silver;\n There is no breath at all in the heart of it.\n But Jehovah is in His Holy Temple:\n Silence before Him, all the earth!_\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[394] See above, pp. 125 f.\n\n[395] See above, pp. 125 f. Nowack (1897) agrees that Cornill\u2019s and\nothers\u2019 conclusion that vv. 9-20 are not Habakkuk\u2019s is too sweeping. He\ntakes the first, second and fourth of the taunt-songs as authentic, but\nassigns the third (vv. 12-14) and the fifth (18-20) to another hand. He\ndeems the refrain, 8_b_ and 17_b_, to be a gloss, and puts 19 before\n18. Driver, _Introd._, 6th ed., holds to the authenticity of all the\nverses.\n\n[396] The text reads, _For also wine is treacherous_, under which\nwe might be tempted to suspect some such original as, _As wine is\ntreacherous, so_ (next line) _the proud fellow_, etc. (or, as Davidson\nsuggests, _Like wine is the treacherous dealer_), were it not that the\nword _wine_ appears neither in the Greek nor in the Syrian version.\nWellhausen suggests that \u05d4\u05d9\u05d9\u05df, _wine_, is a corruption of \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9, with\nwhich the verse, like vv. 6_b_, 9, 12, 15, 19, may have originally\nbegun, but according to 6_a_ the taunt-songs, opening with \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9, start\nfirst in 6_b_. Bredenkamp proposes \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b6\u05e4\u05b6\u05e1 \u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05d0\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05df.\n\n[397] The text is \u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05d4, a verb not elsewhere found in the Old\nTestament, and conjectured by our translators to mean _keepeth\nat home_, because the noun allied to it means _homestead_ or\n_resting-place_. The Syriac gives _is not satisfied_, and Wellhausen\nproposes to read \u05d9\u05e8\u05d5\u05d4 with that sense. See Davidson\u2019s note on the verse.\n\n[398] A.V. _thick clay_, which is reached by breaking up the word\n\u05e2\u05d1\u05d8\u05d9\u05d8, _pledge_ or _debt_, into \u05e2\u05d1, _thick cloud_, and \u05d8\u05d9\u05d8, _clay_.\n\n[399] Literally _thy biters_, \u05e0\u05e9\u05db\u05d9\u05da, but \u05e0\u05e9\u05da, _biting_, is _interest_\nor _usury_, and the Hiphil of \u05e0\u05e9\u05da is _to exact interest_.\n\n[400] LXX. sing., Heb. pl.\n\n[401] These words occur again in ver. 17. Wellhausen thinks they suit\nneither here nor there. But they suit all the taunt-songs, and some\nsuppose that they formed the refrain to each of these.\n\n[402] Dynasty or people?\n\n[403] So LXX.; Heb. _cutting off_.\n\n[404] The grammatical construction is obscure, if the text be correct.\nThere is no mistaking the meaning.\n\n[405]Heb. \u05db\u05e4\u05d9\u05e1, not elsewhere found in the O.T., is in Rabbinic Hebrew\nboth _cross-beam_ and _lath_.\n\n[406] Micah iii. 10.\n\n[407] Jer. xxii. 13.\n\n[408] Literally _fire_.\n\n[409] Jer. li. 58: which original?\n\n[410] After Wellhausen\u2019s suggestion to read \u05de\u05e1\u05e3 \u05d7\u05de\u05ea\u05d5 instead of the\ntext \u05de\u05e1\u05e4\u05d7 \u05d7\u05de\u05ea\u05da, _adding_, or _mixing_, _thy wrath_.\n\n[411] So LXX. Q.; Heb. _their_.\n\n[412] Read \u05d4\u05e8\u05e2\u05dc (cf. Nahum ii. 4; Zech. xii. 2). The text is \u05d4\u05e2\u05e8\u05dc,\nnot found elsewhere, which has been conjectured to mean _uncover the\nforeskin_. And there is some ground for this, as parallel to _his\nnakedness_ in the previous clause. Wellhausen also removes the first\nclause to the end of the verse: _Drink also thou and reel; there comes\nto thee the cup in Jehovah\u2019s right hand, and thou wilt glut thyself\nwith shame instead of honour._\n\n[413] So R.V. for \u05e7\u05d9\u05e7\u05dc\u05d5\u05df, which A.V. has taken as two words\u2014\u05e7\u05d9 for\nwhich cf. Jer. xxv. 27, where however the text is probably corrupt, and\n\u05e7\u05dc\u05d5\u05df. With this confusion cf. above, ver. 6, \u05e2\u05d1\u05d8\u05d9\u05d8.\n\n[414] Read with LXX. \u05d9\u05d7\u05ea\u05da for \u05d9\u05d7\u05d9\u05ea\u05df of the text.\n\n[415] See above, ver. 8.\n\n[416]\u200e \u05ea\u05b8\u05bc\u05e4\u05d5\u05bc\u05e9\u05c2\u200e?\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII\n\n \u201c_IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS_\u201d\n\n HABAKKUK iii.\n\n\nWe have seen the impossibility of deciding the age of the ode which is\nattributed to Habakkuk in the third chapter of his book.[417] But this\nis only one of the many problems raised by that brilliant poem. Much of\nits text is corrupt, and the meaning of many single words is uncertain.\nAs in most Hebrew poems of description, the tenses of the verbs puzzle\nus; we cannot always determine whether the poet is singing of that\nwhich is past or present or future, and this difficulty is increased\nby his subject, a revelation of God in nature for the deliverance\nof Israel. Is this the deliverance from Egypt, with the terrible\ntempests which accompanied it? Or have the features of the Exodus been\nborrowed to describe some other deliverance, or to sum up the constant\nmanifestation of Jehovah for His people\u2019s help?\n\nThe introduction, in ver. 2, is clear. The singer has heard what is\nto be heard of Jehovah, and His great deeds in the past. He prays for\na revival of these _in the midst of the years_. The times are full\nof trouble and turmoil. Would that God, in the present confusion of\nbaffled hopes and broken issues, made Himself manifest by power and\nbrilliance, as of old! _In turmoil remember mercy!_ To render _turmoil_\nby _wrath_, as if it were God\u2019s anger against which the singer\u2019s heart\nappealed, is not true to the original word itself,[418] affords no\nparallel to _the midst of the years_, and misses the situation. Israel\ncries from a state of life in which the obscure years are huddled\ntogether and full of turmoil. We need not wish to fix the date more\nprecisely than the writer himself does, but may leave it with him _in\nthe midst of the years_.\n\nThere follows the description of the Great Theophany, of which, in his\nown poor times, the singer has heard. It is probable that he has in\nhis memory the events of the Exodus and Sinai. On this point his few\ngeographical allusions agree with his descriptions of nature. He draws\nall the latter from the desert, or Arabian, side of Israel\u2019s history.\nHe introduces none of the sea-monsters, or imputations of arrogance\nand rebellion to the sea itself, which the influence of Babylonian\nmythology so thickly scattered through the later sea-poetry of the\nHebrews. The Theophany takes place in a violent tempest of thunder\nand rain, the only process of nature upon which the desert poets of\nArabia dwell with any detail. In harmony with this, God appears from\nthe southern desert, from Teman and Paran, as in the theophanies in\nDeuteronomy xxxiii. and in the Song of Deborah;[419] a few lines recall\nthe Song of the Exodus,[420] and there are many resemblances to the\nphraseology of the Sixty-Eighth Psalm. The poet sees under trouble\nthe tents of Kushan and of Midian, tribes of Sinai. And though the\nTheophany is with floods of rain and lightning, and foaming of great\nwaters, it is not with hills, rivers or sea that God is angry, but with\nthe _nations_, the oppressors of His poor people, and in order that He\nmay deliver the latter. All this, taken with the fact that no mention\nis made of Egypt, proves that, while the singer draws chiefly upon\nthe marvellous events of the Exodus and Sinai for his description, he\ncelebrates not them alone but all the ancient triumphs of God over the\nheathen oppressors of Israel. Compare the obscure line\u2014these be _His\ngoings of old_.\n\nThe report of it all fills the poet with trembling (ver. 16 returns\nupon ver. 26), and although his language is too obscure to permit us to\nfollow with certainty the course of his feeling, he appears to await in\nconfidence the issue of Israel\u2019s present troubles. His argument seems\nto be, that such a God may be trusted still, in face of approaching\ninvasion (ver. 16). The next verse, however, does not express the\nexperience of trouble from human foes; but figuring the extreme\naffliction of drought, barrenness and poverty, the poet speaking in the\nname of Israel declares that, in spite of them, he will still rejoice\nin the God of their salvation (ver. 17). So sudden is this change from\nhuman foes to natural plagues, that some scholars have here felt a\npassage to another poem describing a different situation. But the last\nlines with their confidence in the _God of salvation_, a term always\nused of deliverance from enemies, and the boast, borrowed from the\nEighteenth Psalm, _He maketh my feet like to hinds\u2019 feet, and gives me\nto march on my heights_, reflect the same circumstances as the bulk of\nthe Psalm, and offer no grounds to doubt the unity of the whole.[421]\n\n\n PSALM[422] OF HABAKKUK THE PROPHET.\n\n _LORD, I have heard the report of Thee;\n I stand in awe![423]\n LORD, revive Thy work in the midst of the years,\n In the midst of the years make Thee known;[424]\n In turmoil[425] remember mercy!_\n\n _God comes from Teman,[426]\n The Holy from Mount Paran.[427]\n He covers the heavens with His glory,\n And filled with His praise is the earth.\n The flash is like lightning;\n He has rays from each hand of Him,\n Therein[428] is the ambush of His might._\n\n _Pestilence travels before Him,\n The plague-fire breaks forth at His feet.\n He stands and earth shakes,[429]\n He looks and drives nations asunder;\n And the ancient mountains are cloven,\n The hills everlasting sink down._\n These be _His ways from of old_.[430]\n\n _Under trouble I see the tents of K\u00fbsh\u0101n,[431]\n The curtains of Midian\u2019s land are quivering.\n Is it with hills[432] Jehovah is wroth?\n Is Thine anger with rivers?\n Or against the sea is Thy wrath,\n That Thou ridest it with horses,\n Thy chariots of victory?\n Thy bow is stripped bare;[433]\n Thou gluttest (?) Thy shafts.[434]\n Into rivers Thou cleavest the earth;[435]\n Mountains see Thee and writhe;\n The rainstorm sweeps on:[436]\n The Deep utters his voice,\n He lifts up his roar upon high.[437]\n Sun and moon stand still in their dwelling,\n At the flash of Thy shafts as they speed,\n At the sheen of the lightning, Thy lance.\n In wrath Thou stridest the earth,\n In anger Thou threshest the nations!\n Thou art forth to the help of Thy people,\n To save Thine anointed.[438]\n Thou hast shattered the head from the house of the wicked,\n Laying bare from ...[439] to the neck.\n Thou hast pierced with Thy spears the head of his princes.[440]\n They stormed forth to crush me;\n Their triumph was as to devour the poor in secret.[441]\n Thou hast marched on the sea with Thy horses;\n Foamed[442] the great waters._\n\n _I have heard, and my heart[443] shakes;\n At the sound my lips tremble,[444]\n Rottenness enters my bones,[445]\n My steps shake under me.[446]\n I will ...[447] for the day of trouble\n That pours in on the people.[448]_\n\n _Though the fig-tree do not blossom,[449]\n And no fruit be on the vines,\n Fail the produce of the olive,\n And the fields yield no meat,\n Cut off[450] be the flock from the fold,\n And no cattle in the stalls,\n Yet in the LORD will I exult,\n I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.\n Jehovah, the Lord, is my might;\n He hath made my feet like the hinds\u2019,\n And on my heights He gives me to march._\n\nThis Psalm, whose musical signs prove it to have been employed in the\nliturgy of the Jewish Temple, has also largely entered into the use\nof the Christian Church. The vivid style, the sweep of vision, the\nexultation in the extreme of adversity with which it closes, have\nmade it a frequent theme of preachers and of poets. St. Augustine\u2019s\nexposition of the Septuagint version spiritualises almost every clause\ninto a description of the first and second advents of Christ.[451]\nCalvin\u2019s more sober and accurate learning interpreted it of God\u2019s\nguidance of Israel from the time of the Egyptian plagues to the days\nof Joshua and Gideon, and made it enforce the lesson that He who so\nwonderfully delivered His people in their youth will not forsake them\nin the midway of their career.[452] The closing verses have been torn\nfrom the rest to form the essence of a large number of hymns in many\nlanguages.\n\nFor ourselves it is perhaps most useful to fasten upon the poet\u2019s\ndescription of his own position in the midst of the years, and like\nhim to take heart, amid our very similar circumstances, from the\nglorious story of God\u2019s ancient revelation, in the faith that He is\nstill the same in might and in purpose of grace to His people. We, too,\nlive among the nameless years. We feel them about us, undistinguished\nby the manifest workings of God, slow and petty, or, at the most,\nfull of inarticulate turmoil. At this very moment we suffer from the\nfrustration of a great cause, on which believing men had set their\nhearts as God\u2019s cause; Christendom has received from the infidel no\ngreater reverse since the days of the Crusades. Or, lifting our eyes\nto a larger horizon, we are tempted to see about us a wide, flat waste\nof years. It is nearly nineteen centuries since the great revelation\nof God in Christ, the redemption of mankind, and all the wonders of\nthe Early Church. We are far, far away from that, and unstirred by the\nexpectation of any crisis in the near future. We stand _in the midst\nof the years_, equally distant from beginning and from end. It is the\nsituation which Jesus Himself likened to the long double watch in the\nmiddle of the night\u2014_if he come in the second watch or in the third\nwatch_\u2014against whose dulness He warned His disciples. How much need is\nthere at such a time to recall, like this poet, what God has done\u2014how\noften He has shaken the world and overturned the nations, for the sake\nof His people and the Divine causes they represent. _His ways are\neverlasting._ As He then worked, so He will work now for the same ends\nof redemption. Our prayer for _a revival of His work_ will be answered\nbefore it is spoken.\n\nIt is probable that much of our sense of the staleness of the years\ncomes from their prosperity. The dull feeling that time is mere routine\nis fastened upon our hearts by nothing more firmly than by the constant\nround of fruitful seasons\u2014that fortification of comfort, that\nregularity of material supplies, which modern life assures to so many.\nAdversity would brace us to a new expectation of the near and strong\naction of our God. This is perhaps the meaning of the sudden mention of\nnatural plagues in the seventeenth verse of our Psalm. Not in spite of\nthe extremes of misfortune, but just because of them, should we exult\nin _the God of our salvation_; and realise that it is by discipline He\nmakes His Church to feel that she is not marching over the dreary\nlevels of nameless years, but _on our high places He makes us to\nmarch_.\n\n\u201cGrant, Almighty God, as the dulness and hardness of our flesh is so\ngreat that it is needful for us to be in various ways afflicted\u2014oh\ngrant that we patiently bear Thy chastisement, and under a deep\nfeeling of sorrow flee to Thy mercy displayed to us in Christ, so that\nwe depend not on the earthly blessings of this perishable life, but\nrelying on Thy word go forward in the course of our calling, until at\nlength we be gathered to that blessed rest which is laid up for us in\nheaven, through Christ our Lord. Amen.\u201d[453]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[417] Above, pp. 126 ff.\n\n[418]\u200e \u05e8\u05d2\u05d6 nowhere in the Old Testament means _wrath_, but either\nroar and noise of thunder (Job xxxvii. 2) and of horsehoofs (xxxix.\n24), or the raging of the wicked (iii. 17) or the commotion of fear\n(iii. 26; Isa. xiv. 3).\n\n[419]\n\n _Jehovah from Sinai hath come,\n And risen from Se\u2018ir upon them;\n He shone from Mount Paran,\n And broke from Meribah of \u1e32adesh:\n From the South fire ... to them._\n\nDeut. xxxiii. 2, slightly altered after the LXX. _South_: some form\nof \u05d9\u05de\u05d9\u05df must be read to bring the line into parallel with the others;\n\u05ea\u05d9\u05de\u05df, Teman, is from the same root.\n\n _Jehovah, in Thy going forth from Se\u2019ir,\n In Thy marching from Edom\u2019s field,\n Earth shook, yea, heaven dropped,\n Yea, the clouds dropped water.\n Mountains flowed down before Jehovah,\n Yon Sinai at the face of the God of Israel._\n\n Judges v. 4, 5.\n\n\n[420] Exod. xv.\n\n[421] In this case ver. 17 would be the only one that offered any\nreason for suspicion that it was an intrusion.\n\n[422]\u200e \u05ea\u05e4\u05dc\u05d4, lit. Prayer, but used for Psalm: cf. Psalm cii. 1.\n\n[423] Sinker takes with this the first two words of next line: _I have\ntrembled, O LORD, at Thy work_.\n\n[424]\u200e \u05ea\u05d5\u05d3\u05e2, Imp. Niph., after LXX. \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u1fc3. The Hebrew has \u05ea\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05d3\u05b4\u05d9\u05e2\u05b7,\nHi., _make known_. The LXX. had a text of these verses which\nreduplicated them, and it has translated them very badly.\n\n[425]\u200e \u05e8\u05b9\u05d2\u05b6\u05d6, _turmoil_, _noise_, as in Job: a meaning that offers a\nbetter parallel to _in the midst of the years_ than _wrath_, which\nthe word also means. Davidson, however, thinks it more natural to\nunderstand the _wrath_ manifest at the coming of Jehovah to judgment.\nSo Sinker.\n\n[426] Vulg. _ab Austro_, _from the South_.\n\n[427] LXX. adds \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b1\u03c3\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2, which seems the translation of a\nclause, perhaps a gloss, containing the name of Mount Se\u2018ir, as in the\nparallel descriptions of a theophany, Deut. xxiii. 2, Judg. v. 4. See\nSinker, p. 45.\n\n[428] Wellhausen, reading \u05e9\u05c2\u05dd for \u05e9\u05c1\u05dd, translates _He made them_, etc.\n\n[429] So LXX. Heb. _and measures the earth_.\n\n[430] This is the only way of rendering the verse so as not to make it\nseem superfluous: so rendered it sums up and clenches the theophany\nfrom ver. 3 onwards; and a new strophe now begins. There is therefore\nno need to omit the verse, as Wellhausen does.\n\n[431] LXX. \u1f08\u03af\u03b8\u03b9\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2; but these are Kush, and the parallelism requires\na tribe in Arabia. Calvin rejects the meaning _Ethiopian_ on the same\nground, but takes the reference as to King Kushan in Judg. iii. 8, 10,\non account of the parallelism with Midian. The Midianite wife whom\nMoses married is called the Kushite (Num. xii. 1). Hommel (_Anc. Hebrew\nTradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, p. 315 and n. 1) appears to\ntake Zerah the Kushite of 2 Chron. xiv. 9 ff. as a prince of Kush in\nCentral Arabia. But the narrative which makes him deliver his invasion\nof Judah at Mareshah surely confirms the usual opinion that he and his\nhost were Ethiopians coming up from Egypt.\n\n[432] For \u05d4\u05d1\u05e0\u05d4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd, _is it with streams_, read \u05d4\u05d1\u05d4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd, _is it with\nhills_: because hills have already been mentioned, and rivers occur in\nthe next clause, and are separated by the same disjunctive particle,\n\u05d0\u05b4\u05dd, which separates _the sea_ in the third clause from them. The\nwhole phrase might be rendered, _Is it with hills_ Thou art _angry, O\nJehovah_?\n\n[433] Questionable: the verb \u05ea\u05b5\u05bc\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8, Ni. of a supposed \u05e2\u05d5\u05bc\u05e8, does\nnot elsewhere occur, and is only conjectured from the noun \u05e2\u05b6\u05e8\u05b0\u05d5\u05b8\u05d4,\n_nakedness_, and \u05e2\u05b6\u05e8\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4, _stripping_. LXX. has \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2,\nand Wellhausen reads, after 2 Sam. xxiii. 18, \u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b5\u05e8 \u05ea\u05b0\u05bc\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b5\u05e8, _Thou\nbringest into action Thy bow_.\n\n[434]\u200e \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05d1\u05bb\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05de\u05b7\u05d8\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05d0\u05b9\u05de\u05b6\u05e8, literally _sworn are staves_ or _rods of\nspeech_. A.V.: according _to the oaths of the tribes_, even Thy _word_.\nLXX. (omitting \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05d1\u05bb\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea and adding \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4) \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c3\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1, \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2.\nThese words \u201cform a riddle which all the ingenuity of scholars has not\nbeen able to solve. Delitzsch calculates that a hundred translations\nof them have been offered\u201d (Davidson). In parallel to previous\nclause about a _bow_, we ought to expect \u05de\u05d8\u05d5\u05ea, _staves_, though it\nis not elsewhere used for _shafts_ or _arrows_. \u05e9\u05c1\u05d1\u05e2\u05d5\u05ea may have been\n\u05e9\u05b7\u05c2\u05d1\u05b5\u05bc\u05e2\u05b0\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc, _Thou satest_. The Cod. Barb. reads: \u1f10\u03c7\u03cc\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2\n\u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6, _Thou hast satiated the shafts of his quiver_. Sinker:\n_sworn are the punishments of the solemn decree_, and relevantly\ncompares Isa. xi. 4, _the rod of His mouth_; xxx. 32, _rod of doom_.\nEwald: _sevenfold shafts of war_. But cf. Psalm cxviii. 12.\n\n[435] Uncertain, but a more natural result of cleaving than _the rivers\nThou cleavest into dry land_ (Davidson and Wellhausen).\n\n[436] But Ewald takes this as of the Red Sea floods sweeping on the\nEgyptians.\n\n[437]\u200e \u05e8\u05d5\u05dd \u05d9\u05d3\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5 \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 = _he lifts up his hands on high_. But the LXX.\nread \u05de\u05e8\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5, \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2, and took \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 with the next verse. The\nreading \u05de\u05e8\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5 (for \u05de\u05e8\u05d0\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5) is indeed nonsense, but suggests an\nemendation to \u05de\u05e8\u05d6\u05d7\u05d5, _his shout or wail_: cf. Amos vi. 7, Jer. xvi. 5.\n\n[438] Reading for \u05d4\u05d5\u05e9\u05d9\u05e2 \u05d9\u05e9\u05e2, required by the acc. following. _Thine\nanointed_, lit. _Thy Messiah_, according to Isa. xl. ff. the whole\npeople.\n\n[439] Heb. \u05d9\u05e1\u05d5\u05d3, _foundation_. LXX. _bonds_. Some suggest laying bare\nfrom the foundation to the neck, but this is mixed unless _neck_\nhappened to be a technical name for a part of a building: cf. Isa.\nviii. 8, xxx. 28.\n\n[440] Heb. _his spears_ or _staves_; _his own_ (Von Orelli). LXX.\n\u1f10\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9: see Sinker, pp. 56 ff. _Princes_: \u05e4\u05b0\u05e8\u05b8\u05d6\u05b8\u05d5 only here.\nHitzig: _his brave ones_. Ewald, Wellhausen, Davidson: _his princes_.\nDelitzsch: _his hosts_. LXX. \u03ba\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd.\n\n[441] So Heb. literally. A very difficult line. On LXX. see Sinker, pp.\n60 f.\n\n[442] For \u05d7\u05b9\u05de\u05b6\u05e8, _heap_ (so A.V.), read some part of \u05d7\u05de\u05e8, _to foam_.\nLXX. \u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2: cf. Psalm xlvi. 4.\n\n[443] So LXX. \u05d0 (some codd.), softening the original _belly_.\n\n[444] Or _my lips quiver aloud_\u2014\u05dc\u05e7\u05d5\u05dc, _vocally_ (Von Orelli).\n\n[445] By the Hebrew the bones were felt, as a modern man feels his\nnerves: Psalms xxxii., li.; Job.\n\n[446] For \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8, for which LXX. gives \u1f21 \u1f14\u03be\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, read \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8\u05d9, _my steps_;\nand for \u05d0\u05e8\u05d2\u05d6, LXX. \u1f11\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03c7\u03b8\u03b7, \u05d9\u05e8\u05d2\u05d6\u05d5.\n\n[447]\u200e \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc\u05d7\u05b7. LXX. \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9, _I will rest_. A.V.: _that I might\nrest in the day of trouble_. Others: _I will wait for_. Wellhausen\nsuggests \u05d0\u05b4\u05e0\u05b8\u05bc\u05d7\u05b5\u05dd (Isa. l. 24), _I will take comfort_. Sinker takes\n\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 as the simple relative: _I who will wait patiently for the day of\ndoom_. Von Orelli takes it as the conjunction _because_.\n\n[448]\u200e \u05d9\u05b0\u05d2\u05bb\u05d3\u05b6\u05e0\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc, _it invades_, _brings up troops on them_, only in\nGen. xlix. 19 and here. Wellhausen: _which invades us_. Sinker: _for\nthe coming up against the people of him who shall assail it_.\n\n[449]\u200e \u05ea\u05e4\u05e8\u05d7; but LXX. \u05ea\u05e4\u05e8\u05d4, \u03bf\u1f50 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9, _bear no fruit_.\n\n[450] For \u05d2\u05d6\u05e8 Wellhausen reads \u05e0\u05b4\u05d2\u05d6\u05e8. LXX. \u1f10\u03be\u03b5\u03bb\u03b9\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd.\n\n[451] _De Civitate Dei_, XVIII. 32.\n\n[452] So he paraphrases _in the midst of the years_.\n\n[453] From the prayer with which Calvin concludes his exposition of\nHabakkuk.\n\n\n\n\n _OBADIAH_\n\n\n\n\n_And Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the\nkingdom shall be Jehovah\u2019s._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIII\n\n _THE BOOK OF OBADIAH_\n\n\nThe Book of Obadiah is the smallest among the prophets, and the\nsmallest in all the Old Testament. Yet there is none which better\nillustrates many of the main problems of Old Testament criticism. It\nraises, indeed, no doctrinal issue nor any question of historical\naccuracy. All that it claims to be is _The Vision of Obadiah_;[454] and\nthis vague name, with no date or dwelling-place to challenge comparison\nwith the contents of the book, introduces us without prejudice to\nthe criticism of the latter. Nor is the book involved in the central\ncontroversy of Old Testament scholarship, the date of the Law. It has\nno reference to the Law. Nor is it made use of in the New Testament.\nThe more freely, therefore, may we study the literary and historical\nquestions started by the twenty-one verses which compose the book.\nTheir brief course is broken by differences of style, and by sudden\nchanges of outlook from the past to the future. Some of them present\na close parallel to another passage of prophecy, a feature which when\npresent offers a difficult problem to the critic. Hardly any of the\nhistorical allusions are free from ambiguity, for although the book\nrefers throughout to a single nation\u2014and so vividly that even if Edom\nwere not named we might still discern the character and crimes of that\nbitter brother of Israel\u2014yet the conflict of Israel and Edom was so\nprolonged and so monotonous in its cruelties, that there are few of\nits many centuries to which some scholar has not felt himself able to\nassign, in part or whole, Obadiah\u2019s indignant oration. The little book\nhas been tossed out of one century into another by successive critics,\ntill there exists in their estimates of its date a difference of nearly\nsix hundred years.[455] Such a fact seems, at first sight, to convict\ncriticism either of arbitrariness or helplessness;[456] yet a little\nconsideration of details is enough to lead us to an appreciation of the\nreasonable methods of Old Testament criticism, and of its indubitable\nprogress towards certainty, in spite of our ignorance of large\nstretches of the history of Israel. To the student of the Old Testament\nnothing could be more profitable than to master the historical and\nliterary questions raised by the Book of Obadiah, before following them\nout among the more complicated problems which are started by other\nprophetical books in their relation to the Law of Israel, or to their\nown titles, or to claims made for them in the New Testament.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe Book of Obadiah contains a number of verbal parallels to another\nprophecy against Edom which appears in Jeremiah xlix. 7-22. Most\ncritics have regarded this prophecy of Jeremiah as genuine, and have\nassigned it to the year 604 B.C. The question is whether Obadiah or\nJeremiah is the earlier. Hitzig and Vatke[457] answered in favour of\nJeremiah; and as the Book of Obadiah also contains a description of\nEdom\u2019s conduct in the day of Jerusalem\u2019s overthrow by Nebuchadrezzar,\nin 586, they brought the whole book down to post-exilic times.\nVery forcible arguments, however, have been offered for Obadiah\u2019s\npriority.[458] Upon this priority, as well as on the facts that Joel,\nwhom they take to be early, quotes from Obadiah, and that Obadiah\u2019s\nbook occurs among the first six\u2014presumably the pre-exilic members\u2014of\nthe Twelve, a number of scholars have assigned all of it to an early\nperiod in Israel\u2019s history. Some fix upon the reign of Jehoshaphat,\nwhen Judah was invaded by Edom and his allies Moab and Ammon, but saved\nfrom disaster through Moab and Ammon turning upon the Edomites and\nslaughtering them.[459] To this they refer the phrase in Obadiah 9,\n_the men of thy covenant have betrayed thee_. Others place the whole\nbook in the reign of Joram of Judah (849\u2014842 B.C.), when, according to\nthe Chronicles,[460] Judah was invaded and Jerusalem partly sacked by\nPhilistines and Arabs.[461] But in the story of this invasion, there\nis no mention of Edomites, and the argument which is drawn from Joel\u2019s\nquotation of Obadiah fails if Joel, as we shall see, be of late date.\nWith greater prudence Pusey declines to fix a period.\n\nThe supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the _whole_ Book of Obadiah\nhave to explain vv. 11-14, which appear to reflect Edom\u2019s conduct at\nthe sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586, and they do so in two\nways. Pusey takes the verses as predictive of Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s siege.\nOrelli and others believe that they suit better the conquest and\nplunder of the city in the time of Jehoram. But, as Calvin has said,\n\u201cthey seem to be mistaken who think that Obadiah lived before the time\nof Isaiah.\u201d\n\nThe question, however, very early arose, whether it was possible to\ntake Obadiah as a unity. Vv. 1-9 are more vigorous and firm than vv.\n10-21. In vv. 1-9 Edom is destroyed by nations who are its allies; in\nvv. 10-21 it is still to fall along with other Gentiles in the general\njudgment of the Lord.[462] Vv. 10-21 admittedly describe the conduct\nof the Edomites at the overthrow of Jerusalem in 586; but vv. 1-9\nprobably reflect earlier events; and it is significant that in them\nalone occur the parallels to Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy against Edom in 604.\nOn some of these grounds Ewald regarded the little book as consisting\nof two pieces, both of which refer to Edom, but the first of which was\nwritten before Jeremiah, and the second is post-exilic. As Jeremiah\u2019s\nprophecy has some features more original than Obadiah\u2019s,[463] he traced\nboth prophecies to an original oracle against Edom, of which Obadiah on\nthe whole renders an exact version. He fixed the date of this oracle in\nthe earlier days of Isaiah, when Rezin of Syria enabled Edom to assert\nagain its independence of Judah, and Edom won back Elath, which Uzziah\nhad taken.[464] Driver, Wildeboer and Cornill[465] adopt this theory,\nwith the exception of the period to which Ewald refers the original\noracle. According to them, the Book of Obadiah consists of two pieces,\nvv. 1-9 pre-exilic, and vv. 10-21 post-exilic and descriptive in 11-14\nof Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s sack of Jerusalem.\n\nThis latter point need not be contested.[466] But is it clear that\n1-9 are so different from 10-21 that they must be assigned to another\nperiod? Are they necessarily pre-exilic? Wellhausen thinks not, and has\nconstructed still another theory of the origin of the book, which, like\nVatke\u2019s, brings it all down to the period after the Exile.\n\nThere is no mention in the book either of Assyria or of Babylonia.[467]\nThe allies who have betrayed Edom (ver. 7) are therefore probably\nthose Arabian tribes who surrounded it and were its frequent\nconfederates.[468] They are described as _sending_ Edom _to the border_\n(_ib._). Wellhausen thinks that this can only refer to the great\nnorthward movement of Arabs which began to press upon the fertile\nlands to the south-east of Israel during the time of the Captivity.\nEzekiel[469] prophesies that Ammon and Moab will disappear before\nthe Arabs, and we know that by the year 312 the latter were firmly\nsettled in the territories of Edom.[470] Shortly before this the\nHagarenes appear in Chronicles, and Se\u2019ir is called by the Arabic name\nGebal,[471] while as early as the fifth century \u201cMalachi\u201d[472] records\nthe desolation of Edom\u2019s territory by the _jackals of the wilderness_,\nand the expulsion of the Edomites, who will not return. The Edomites\nwere pushed up into the Negeb of Israel, and occupied the territory\nround, and to the south of, Hebron till their conquest by John Hyrcanus\nabout 130; even after that it was called Idum\u00e6a.[473] Wellhausen would\nassign Obadiah 1-7 to the same stage of this movement as is reflected\nin \u201cMalachi\u201d i. 1-5; and, apart from certain parentheses, would\ntherefore take the whole of Obadiah as a unity from the end of the\nfifth century before Christ. In that case Giesebrecht argues that the\nparallel prophecy, Jeremiah xlix. 7-22, must be reckoned as one of the\npassages of the Book of Jeremiah in which post-exilic additions have\nbeen inserted.[474]\n\nOur criticism of this theory may start from the seventh verse of\nObadiah: _To the border they have sent thee, all the men of thy\ncovenant have betrayed thee, they have overpowered thee, the men of\nthy peace._ On our present knowledge of the history of Edom it is\nimpossible to assign the first of these clauses to any period before\nthe Exile. No doubt in earlier days Edom was more than once subjected\nto Arab _razzias_. But up to the Jewish Exile the Edomites were still\nin possession of their own land. So the Deuteronomist[475] implies,\nand so Ezekiel[476] and perhaps the author of Lamentations.[477]\nWellhausen\u2019s claim, therefore, that the seventh verse of Obadiah refers\nto the expulsion of Edomites by Arabs in the sixth or fifth century\nB.C. may be granted.[478] But does this mean that verses 1-6 belong,\nas he maintains, to the same period? A negative answer seems required\nby the following facts. To begin with, the seventh verse is not found\nin the parallel prophecy in Jeremiah. There is no reason why it should\nnot have been used there, if that prophecy had been compiled at a\ntime when the expulsion of the Edomites was already an accomplished\nfact. But both by this omission and by all its other features, that\nprophecy suits the time of Jeremiah, and we may leave it, therefore,\nwhere it was left till the appearance of Wellhausen\u2019s theory\u2014namely,\nwith Jeremiah himself.[479] Moreover Jeremiah xlix. 9 seems to have\nbeen adapted in Obadiah 5 in order to suit verse 6. But again, Obadiah\n1-6, which contains so many parallels to Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy, also\nseems to imply that the Edomites are still in possession of their\nland. _The nations_ (we may understand by this the Arab tribes) are\nrisen against Edom, and Edom is already despicable in face of them\n(vv. 1, 2); but he has not yet fallen, any more than, to the writer of\nIsaiah xlv.\u2014xlvii., who uses analogous language, Babylon is already\nfallen. Edom is weak and cannot resist the Arab _razzias_. But he\nstill makes his eyrie on high and says: _Who will bring me down?_ To\nwhich challenge Jehovah replies, not \u2018I have brought thee down,\u2019 but\n_I will bring thee down_. The post-exilic portion of Obadiah, then, I\ntake to begin with verse 7; and the author of this prophecy has begun\nby incorporating in vv. 1-6 a pre-exilic prophecy against Edom, which\nhad been already, and with more freedom, used by Jeremiah. Verses\n8-9 form a difficulty. They return to the future tense, as if the\nEdomites were still to be cut off from Mount Esau. But verse 10, as\nWellhausen points out, follows on naturally to verse 7, and, with its\nsuccessors, clearly points to a period subsequent to Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s\noverthrow of Jerusalem. The change from the past tense in vv. 10-11\nto the imperatives of 12-14 need cause, in spite of what Pusey says,\nno difficulty, but may be accounted for by the excited feelings of\nthe prophet. The suggestion has been made, and it is plausible, that\nObadiah speaks as an eye-witness of that awful time. Certainly there\nis nothing in the rest of the prophecy (vv. 15-21) to lead us to bring\nit further down than the years following the destruction of Jerusalem.\nEverything points to the Jews being still in exile. The verbs which\ndescribe the inviolateness of Jerusalem (17), and the reinstatement of\nIsrael in their heritage (17, 19), and their conquest of Edom (18), are\nall in the future. The prophet himself appears to write in exile (20).\nThe captivity of Jerusalem is in Sepharad (_ib._) and the _saviours_\nhave to _come up_ to Mount Zion; that is to say, they are still beyond\nthe Holy Land (21).[480]\n\nThe one difficulty in assigning this date to the prophecy is that\nnothing is said in the Hebrew of ver. 19 about the re-occupation of\nthe hill-country of Jud\u00e6a itself, but here the Greek may help us.[481]\nCertainly every other feature suits the early days of the Exile.\n\nThe result of our inquiry is that the Book of Obadiah was written at\nthat time by a prophet in exile, who was filled by the same hatred of\nEdom as filled another exile, who in Babylon wrote Psalm cxxxvii.; and\nthat, like so many of the exilic writers, he started from an earlier\nprophecy against Edom, already used by Jeremiah.[482] [Nowack (_Comm._,\n1897) takes vv. 1-14 (with additions in vv. 1, 5, 6, 8f. and 12) to\nbe from a date not long after the Fall of Jerusalem, alluded to in\nvv. 11-14; and vv. 15-21 to belong to a later period, which it is\nimpossible to fix exactly.]\n\nThere is nothing in the language of the book to disturb this\nconclusion. The Hebrew of Obadiah is pure; unlike its neighbour, the\nBook of Jonah, it contains neither Aramaisms nor other symptoms of\ndecadence. The text is very sound. The Septuagint Version enables us to\ncorrect vv. 7 and 17, offers the true division between vv. 9 and 10,\nbut makes an omission which leaves no sense in ver. 17.[483] It will be\nbest to give all the twenty-one verses together before commenting on\ntheir spirit.\n\n\n THE VISION OF OBADIAH.\n\n_Thus hath the Lord Jehovah spoken concerning Edom._[484]\n\n\u201c_A report have we heard from Jehovah, and a messenger has been sent\nthrough the nations, \u2018Up and let us rise against her to battle.\u2019 Lo,\nI have made thee small among the nations, thou art very despised! The\narrogance of thy heart hath misled thee, dweller in clefts of the\nRock[485]; the height is his dwelling, that saith in his heart \u2018Who\nshall bring me down to earth!\u2019 Though thou build high as the eagle,\nthough between the stars thou set thy nest, thence will I bring thee\ndown\u2014oracle of Jehovah. If thieves had come into thee by night (how\nart thou humbled!),[486] would they not steal _just_ what they wanted?\nIf vine-croppers had come into thee, would they not leave_ some\n_gleanings? (How searched out is Esau, how rifled his treasures!)_\u201d\nBut now _to_ thy very _border have they sent thee, all the men of thy\ncovenant[487] have betrayed thee, the men of thy peace have overpowered\nthee[488]; they kept setting traps for thee\u2014there is no understanding\nin him! \u201c[489]Shall it not be in that day\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014that I\nwill cause the wise men to perish from Edom, and understanding from\nMount Esau? And thy heroes, O Teman, shall be dismayed, till[490]\nevery man be cut off from Mount Esau.\u201d For the slaughter,[491] for the\noutraging of thy brother Jacob, shame doth cover thee, and thou art\ncut off for ever. In the day of thy standing aloof,[492] in the day\nwhen strangers took captive his substance, and aliens came into his\ngates,[493] and they cast lots on Jerusalem, even thou wert as one of\nthem!_ Ah, _gloat not[494] upon the day of thy brother,[495] the day\nof his misfortune[496]; exult not over the sons of Judah in the day\nof their destruction, and make not thy mouth large[497] in the day of\ndistress. Come not up into the gate of My people in the day of their\ndisaster. Gloat not thou, yea thou, upon his ills, in the day of his\ndisaster, nor put forth thy hand to his substance in the day of his\ndisaster, nor stand at the parting[498]_ of the ways (?) _to cut off\nhis fugitives; nor arrest his escaped ones in the day of distress_.\n\n_For near is the day of Jehovah, upon all the nation as thou hast done,\nso shall it be done to thee: thy deed shall come back on thine own\nhead.[499]_\n\n_For as ye[500] have drunk on my holy mount, all the nations shall\ndrink continuously, drink and reel, and be as though they had not\nbeen.[501] But on Mount Zion shall be refuge, and it shall be\ninviolate, and the house of Jacob shall inherit those who have\ndisinherited them.[502] For the house of Jacob shall be fire, and the\nhouse of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau shall become stubble,\nand they shall kindle upon them and devour them, and there shall not\none escape of the house of Esau\u2014for Jehovah hath spoken._\n\n_And the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and the Shephelah the\nPhilistines,[503] and the Mountain[504] shall possess Ephraim and the\nfield of Samaria,[505] and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. And the\nexiles of this host[506] of the children of Israel shall possess(?) the\nland[507] of the Canaanites unto Sarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem\nwho are in Sepharad[508] shall inherit the cities of the Negeb. And\nsaviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the\nkingdom shall be Jehovah\u2019s._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[454]\u200e \u05e2\u05b9\u05d1\u05b7\u05d3\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4, \u2018Obadyah, the later form of \u05e2\u05b9\u05d1\u05b7\u05d3\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc, \u2018Obadyahu (a name\noccurring thrice before the Exile: Ahab\u2019s steward who hid the prophets\nof the Lord, 1 Kings xviii. 3-7, 16; of a man in David\u2019s house, 1\nChron. xxvii. 19; a Levite in Josiah\u2019s reign, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12), is\nthe name of several of the Jews who returned from exile: Ezra viii. 9,\nthe son of Jehi\u2019el (in 1 Esdras viii. \u1f08\u03b2\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2); Neh. x. 6, a priest,\nprobably the same as the Obadiah in xii. 25, a porter, and the \u05e2\u05b7\u05d1\u05b0\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0,\nthe singer, in xi. 17, who is called \u05e2\u05b9\u05d1\u05b7\u05d3\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4 in 1 Chron. ix. 16. Another\n\u2018Obadyah is given in the eleventh generation from Saul, 1 Chron. viii.\n38, ix. 44; another in the royal line in the time of the Exile, iii.\n21; a man of Issachar, vii. 3; a Gadite under David, xii. 9; a _prince_\nunder Jehoshaphat sent _to teach in the cities of Judah_, 2 Chron.\nxvii. 7. With the Massoretic points \u05e2\u05b9\u05d1\u05b7\u05d3\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4 means worshipper of Jehovah:\ncf. Obed-Edom, and so in the Greek form, \u1f48\u03b2\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5, of Cod. B. But other\nCodd., A, \u03b8 and \u05d0, give \u1f08\u03b2\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5 or \u1f08\u03b2\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5, and this, with the\nalternative Hebrew form \u05d0\u05b7\u05d1\u05b0\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0 of Neh. xi. 17, suggests rather \u05e2\u05b6\u05d1\u05b6\u05d3 \u05d9\u05b8\u05d4,\n_servant of Jehovah_. The name as given in the title is probably\nintended to be that of an historical individual, as in the titles of\nall the other books; but which, or if any, of the above mentioned it is\nimpossible to say. Note, however, that it is the later post-exilic form\nof the name that is used, in spite of the book occurring among the\npre-exilic prophets. Some, less probably, take the name Obadyah to be\nsymbolic of the prophetic character of the writer.\n\n[455] 889 B.C. Hofmann, Keil, etc.; and soon after 312, Hitzig.\n\n[456] Cf. the extraordinary tirade of Pusey in his Introd. to Obadiah.\n\n[457] The first in his Commentary on _Die Zw\u00f6lf Kleine Propheten_; the\nother in his _Einleitung_.\n\n[458] Caspari (_Der Proph. Ob. ausgelegt_ 1842), Ewald, Graf, Pusey,\nDriver, Giesebrecht, Wildeboer and K\u00f6nig. Cf. Jer. xlix. 9 with Ob. 5;\nJer. xlix. 14 ff. with Ob. 1-4. The opening of Ob. 1 ff. is held to\nbe more in its place than where it occurs in the middle of Jeremiah\u2019s\npassage. The language of Obadiah is \u201cterser and more forcible. Jeremiah\nseems to expand Obadiah, and parts of Jeremiah which have no parallel\nin Obadiah are like Obadiah\u2019s own style\u201d (Driver). This strong argument\nis enforced in detail by Pusey: \u201cOut of the sixteen verses of which\nthe prophecy of Jeremiah against Edom consists, four are identical\nwith those of Obadiah; a fifth embodies a verse of Obadiah\u2019s; of the\neleven which remain ten have some turns of expression or idioms, more\nor fewer, which occur in Jeremiah, either in these prophecies against\nforeign nations, or in his prophecies generally. Now it would be wholly\nimprobable that a prophet, selecting verses out of the prophecy of\nJeremiah, should have selected precisely those which contain none of\nJeremiah\u2019s characteristic expressions; whereas it perfectly fits in\nwith the supposition that Jeremiah interwove verses of Obadiah with his\nown prophecy, that in verses so interwoven there is not one expression\nwhich occurs elsewhere in Jeremiah.\u201d Similarly Nowack, _Comm._, 1897.\n\n[459] 2 Chron. xx.\n\n[460] 2 Chron. xxi. 14-17.\n\n[461] So Delitzsch, Keil, Volck in Herzog\u2019s _Real. Ency._ II., Orelli\nand Kirkpatrick. Delitzsch indeed suggests that the prophet may have\nbeen _Obadiah the prince_ appointed by Jehoshaphat _to teach in the\ncities of Judah_. See above, p. 163, n. 454.\n\n[462] Driver, _Introd._\n\n[463] Jer. xlix. 9 and 16 appear to be more original than Ob. 3 and 2b.\nNotice the presence in Jer. xlix. 16 of \u05ea\u05e4\u05dc\u05e6\u05ea\u05da which Obadiah omits.\n\n[464] 2 Kings xiv. 22; xvi. 6, Revised Version margin.\n\n[465] _Einl._\u00b3 pp. 185 f.: \u201cIn any case Obadiah 1-9 are older than the\nfourth year of Jehoiakim.\u201d\n\n[466] \u201cThat the verses Obadiah 10 ff. refer to this event [the sack of\nJerusalem] will always remain the most natural supposition, for the\ndescription which they give so completely suits that time that it is\nnot possible to take any other explanation into consideration.\u201d\n\n[467] Edom paid tribute to Sennacherib in 701, and to Asarhaddon\n(681\u2014669). According to 2 Kings xxiv. 2 Nebuchadrezzar sent Ammonites,\nMoabites and Edomites [for \u05d0\u05e8\u05dd read \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd] against Jehoiakim, who had\nbroken his oath to Babylonia.\n\n[468] For Edom\u2019s alliances with Arab tribes cf. Gen. xxv. 13 with\nxxxvi. 3, 12, etc.\n\n[469] Ezek. xxv. 4, 5, 10.\n\n[470] Diod. Sic. XIX. 94. A little earlier they are described as in\npossession of Iturea, on the south-east slopes of Anti-Lebanon (Arrian\nII. 20, 4).\n\n[471] Psalm lxxxiii. 8.\n\n[472] i. 1-5.\n\n[473] _E.g._ in the New Testament: Mark iii. 8.\n\n[474] So too Nowack, 1897.\n\n[475] Deut. ii. 5, 8, 12.\n\n[476] Ezek. xxxv., esp. 2 and 15.\n\n[477] iv. 21: yet _Uz_ fails in LXX., and some take \u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 to refer to the\nHoly Land itself. Buhl, _Gesch. der Edomiter_, 73.\n\n[478] It can hardly be supposed that Edom\u2019s treacherous allies were\nAssyrians or Babylonians, for even if the phrase \u201cmen of thy covenant\u201d\ncould be applied to those to whom Edom was tributary, the Assyrian or\nBabylonian method of dealing with conquered peoples is described by\nsaying that they took them off into captivity, not that they _sent them\nto the border_.\n\n[479] So even Cornill, _Einl._\u00b3\n\n[480] This in answer to Wellhausen on the verse.\n\n[481] See below, p. 175, n. 6.\n\n[482] Calvin, while refusing in his introduction to Obadiah to fix a\ndate (except in so far as he thinks it impossible for the book to be\nearlier than Isaiah), implies throughout his commentary on the book\nthat it was addressed to Edom while the Jews were in exile. See his\nremarks on vv. 18-20.\n\n[483] There is a mistranslation in ver. 18: \u05e9\u05c2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d3 is rendered by\n\u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n[484] This is no doubt from the later writer, who before he gives the\nnew word of Jehovah with regard to Edom, quotes the earlier prophecy,\nmarked above by quotation marks. In no other way can we explain the\nimmediate following of the words \u201cThus hath the Lord spoken\u201d with \u201c_We_\nhave heard a report,\u201d etc.\n\n[485] \u2018Sela,\u2019 the name of the Edomite capital, Petra.\n\n[486] The parenthesis is not in Jer. xlix. 9; Nowack omits it. _If\nspoilers_ occurs in Heb. before _by night_: delete.\n\n[487] Antithetic to _thieves_ and _spoilers by night_, as the sending\nof the people to their border is antithetic to the thieves taking only\nwhat they wanted.\n\n[488]\u200e \u05dc\u05d7\u05de\u05da, _thy bread_, which here follows, is not found in the LXX.,\nand is probably an error due to a mechanical repetition of the letters\nof the previous word.\n\n[489] Again perhaps a quotation from an earlier prophecy: Nowack counts\nit from another hand. Mark the sudden change to the future.\n\n[490] Heb. _so that_.\n\n[491] With LXX. transfer this expression from the end of the ninth to\nthe beginning of the tenth verse.\n\n[492] \u201cWhen thou didst stand on the opposite side.\u201d\u2014Calvin.\n\n[493] Plural; LXX. and Qeri.\n\n[494] Sudden change to imperative. The English versions render, _Thou\nshouldest not have looked on_, etc.\n\n[495] Cf. Ps. cxxxvii. 7, _the day of Jerusalem_.\n\n[496] The day of his strangeness = _aliena fortuna_.\n\n[497] With laughter. Wellhausen and Nowack suspect ver. 13 as an\nintrusion.\n\n[498]\u200e \u05e4\u05b6\u05bc\u05e8\u05b6\u05e7 does not elsewhere occur. It means cleaving, and the LXX.\nrender it by \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03ba\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae, _i.e._ pass between mountains. The Arabic forms\nfrom the same root suggest the sense of a band of men standing apart\nfrom the main body on the watch for stragglers (cf. \u05e0\u05d2\u05d3, in ver. 11).\nCalvin, \u201cthe going forth\u201d; Gr\u00e4tz \u05e4\u05e8\u05e5, _breach_, but see Nowack.\n\n[499] Wellhausen proposes to put the last two clauses immediately after\nver. 14.\n\n[500] The prophet seems here to turn to address his own countrymen: the\ndrinking will therefore take the meaning of suffering God\u2019s chastising\nwrath. Others, like Calvin, take it in the opposite sense, and apply it\nto Edom: \u201cas ye have exulted,\u201d etc.\n\n[501] _Reel_\u2014for \u05dc\u05e2\u05d5\u05bc we ought (with Wellhausen) probably to read\n\u05e0\u05e2\u05d5\u05bc: cf. Lam. iv. 2. Some codd. of LXX. omit _all the nations ...\ncontinuously, drink and reel_. But \u05d0^{Ca} A and Q have _all the\nnations shall drink wine_.\n\n[502] So LXX. Heb. _their heritages_.\n\n[503] That is the reverse of the conditions after the Jews went into\nexile, for then the Edomites came up on the Negeb and the Philistines\non the Shephelah.\n\n[504] _I.e._ of Judah, the rest of the country outside the Negeb and\nShephelah. The reading is after the LXX.\n\n[505] Whereas the pagan inhabitants of these places came upon the\nhill-country of Jud\u00e6a during the Exile.\n\n[506] An unusual form of the word. Ewald would read _coast_. The verse\nis obscure.\n\n[507] So LXX.\n\n[508] The Jews themselves thought this to be Spain: so Onkelos, who\ntranslates \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d3 by \u05d0\u05b7\u05e1\u05b0\u05e4\u05b7\u05bc\u05de\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d0 = Hispania. Hence the origin of the\nname Sephardim Jews. The supposition that it is Sparta need hardly\nbe noticed. Our decision must lie between two other regions\u2014the one\nin Asia Minor, the other in S.W. Media. _First_, in the ancient\nPersian inscriptions there thrice occurs (great Behistun inscription,\nI. 15; inscription of Darius, II. 12, 13; and inscription of Darius\nfrom Na\u1e33sh-i-Rustam) \u00c7parda. It is connected with Janua or Ionia and\nKatapatuka or Cappadocia (Schrader, _Cun. Inscr. and O. T._, Germ. ed.,\np. 446; Eng., Vol. II., p. 145); and Sayce shows that, called Shaparda\non a late cuneiform inscription of 275 B.C., it must have lain in\nBithynia or Galatia (_Higher Criticism and Monuments_, p. 483). Darius\nmade it a satrapy. It is clear, as Cheyne says (_Founders of O. T.\nCriticism_, p. 312), that those who on other grounds are convinced of\nthe post-exilic origin of this part of Obadiah, of its origin in the\nPersian period, will identify Sepharad with this \u00c7parda, which both he\nand Sayce do. But to those of us who hold that this part of Obadiah\nis from the time of the Babylonian exile, as we have sought to prove\nabove on pp. 171 f., then Sepharad cannot be \u00c7parda, for Nebuchadrezzar\ndid not subdue Asia Minor and cannot have transported Jews there. Are\nwe then forced to give up our theory of the date of Obadiah 10-21 in\nthe Babylonian exile? By no means. For, _second_, the inscriptions of\nSargon, king of Assyria (721\u2014705 B.C.), mention a Shaparda, in S.W.\nMedia towards Babylonia, a name phonetically correspondent to \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d3\n(Schrader, _l.c._), and the identification of the two is regarded as\n\u201cexceedingly probable\u201d by Fried. Delitzsch (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ p.\n249). But even if this should be shown to be impossible, and if the\nidentification Sepharad = \u00c7parda be proved, that would not oblige us to\nalter our opinion as to the date of the whole of Obadiah 10-21, for it\nis possible that later additions, including Sepharad, have been made to\nthe passage.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIV\n\n _EDOM AND ISRAEL_\n\n OBADIAH 1-21\n\n\nIf the Book of Obadiah presents us with some of the most difficult\nquestions of criticism, it raises besides one of the hardest ethical\nproblems in all the vexed history of Israel.\n\nIsrael\u2019s fate has been to work out their calling in the world through\nantipathies rather than by sympathies, but of all the antipathies which\nthe nation experienced none was more bitter and more constant than that\ntowards Edom. The rest of Israel\u2019s enemies rose and fell like waves:\nCanaanites were succeeded by Philistines, Philistines by Syrians,\nSyrians by Greeks. Tyrant relinquished his grasp of God\u2019s people to\ntyrant: Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian; the Seleucids, the\nPtolemies. But Edom was always there, _and fretted his anger for\never_.[509] From that far back day when their ancestors wrestled in the\nwomb of Rebekah to the very eve of the Christian era, when a Jewish\nking[510] dragged the Idumeans beneath the yoke of the Law, the two\npeoples scorned, hated and scourged each other, with a relentlessness\nthat finds no analogy, between kindred and neighbour nations, anywhere\nelse in history. About 1030 David, about 130 the Hasmoneans, were\nequally at war with Edom; and few are the prophets between those\ndistant dates who do not cry for vengeance against him or exult in his\noverthrow. The Book of Obadiah is singular in this, that it contains\nnothing else than such feelings and such cries. It brings no spiritual\nmessage. It speaks no word of sin, or of righteousness, or of mercy,\nbut only doom upon Edom in bitter resentment at his cruelties, and in\nexultation that, as he has helped to disinherit Israel, Israel shall\ndisinherit him. Such a book among the prophets surprises us. It seems\nbut a dark surge staining the stream of revelation, as if to exhibit\nthrough what a muddy channel these sacred waters have been poured upon\nthe world. Is the book only an outbreak of Israel\u2019s selfish patriotism?\nThis is the question we have to discuss in the present chapter.\n\nReasons for the hostility of Edom and Israel are not far to seek. The\ntwo nations were neighbours with bitter memories and rival interests.\nEach of them was possessed by a strong sense of distinction from\nthe rest of mankind, which goes far to justify the story of their\ncommon descent. But while in Israel this pride was chiefly due to the\nconsciousness of a peculiar destiny not yet realised\u2014a pride painful\nand hungry\u2014in Edom it took the complacent form of satisfaction in a\nterritory of remarkable isolation and self-sufficiency, in large\nstores of wealth, and in a reputation for worldly wisdom\u2014a fulness that\nrecked little of the future, and felt no need of the Divine.\n\nThe purple mountains, into which the wild sons of Esau clambered,\nrun out from Syria upon the desert, some hundred miles by twenty of\nporphyry and red sandstone. They are said to be the finest rock scenery\nin the world. \u201cSalvator Rosa never conceived so savage and so suitable\na haunt for banditti.\u201d[511] From Mount Hor, which is their summit, you\nlook down upon a maze of mountains, cliffs, chasms, rocky shelves and\nstrips of valley. On the east the range is but the crested edge of\na high, cold plateau, covered for the most part by stones, but with\nstretches of corn land and scattered woods. The western walls, on the\ncontrary, spring steep and bare, black and red, from the yellow of the\ndesert \u2018Arabah. The interior is reached by defiles, so narrow that two\nhorsemen may scarcely ride abreast, and the sun is shut out by the\noverhanging rocks. Eagles, hawks and other mountain birds fly screaming\nround the traveller. Little else than wild-fowls\u2019 nests are the\nvillages; human eyries perched on high shelves or hidden away in caves\nat the ends of the deep gorges. There is abundance of water. The gorges\nare filled with tamarisks, oleanders and wild figs. Besides the wheat\nlands on the eastern plateau, the wider defiles hold fertile fields\nand terraces for the vine. Mount Esau is, therefore, no mere citadel\nwith supplies for a limited siege, but a well-stocked, well-watered\ncountry, full of food and lusty men, yet lifted so high, and locked\nso fast by precipice and slippery mountain, that it calls for little\ntrouble of defence. _Dweller in the clefts of the rock, the height is\nhis habitation, that saith in his heart: Who shall bring me down to\nearth?_[512]\n\nOn this rich fortress-land the Edomites enjoyed a civilisation far\nabove that of the tribes who swarmed upon the surrounding deserts;\nand at the same time they were cut off from the lands of those Syrian\nnations who were their equals in culture and descent. When Edom looked\nout of himself, he looked _down_ and _across_\u2014down upon the Arabs, whom\nhis position enabled him to rule with a loose, rough hand, and across\nat his brothers in Palestine, forced by their more open territories\nto make alliances with and against each other, from all of which he\ncould afford to hold himself free. That alone was bound to exasperate\nthem. In Edom himself it appears to have bred a want of sympathy, a\nhabit of keeping to himself and ignoring the claims both of pity and of\nkinship\u2014with which he is charged by all the prophets. _He corrupted his\nnatural feelings, and watched his passion for ever.[513] Thou stoodest\naloof!_[514]\n\nThis self-sufficiency was aggravated by the position of the country\namong several of the main routes of ancient trade. The masters of Mount\nSe\u2019ir held the harbours of \u2018Akaba, into which the gold ships came from\nOphir. They intercepted the Arabian caravans and cut the roads to Gaza\nand Damascus. Petra, in the very heart of Edom, was in later times\nthe capital of the Nabatean kingdom, whose commerce rivalled that of\nPh\u0153nicia, scattering its inscriptions from Teyma in Central Arabia up\nto the very gates of Rome.[515] The earlier Edomites were also traders,\nmiddlemen between Arabia and the Ph\u0153nicians; and they filled their\ncaverns with the wealth both of East and West.[516] There can be little\ndoubt that it was this which first drew the envious hand of Israel upon\na land so cut off from their own and so difficult of invasion. Hear the\nexultation of the ancient prophet whose words Obadiah has borrowed:\n_How searched out is Esau, and his hidden treasures rifled!_[517] But\nthe same is clear from the history. Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Amaziah,\nUzziah and other Jewish invaders of Edom were all ambitious to command\nthe Eastern trade through Elath and Ezion-geber. For this it was\nnecessary to subdue Edom; and the frequent reduction of the country\nto a vassal state, with the revolts in which it broke free, were\naccompanied by terrible cruelties upon both sides.[518] Every century\nincreased the tale of bitter memories between the brothers, and added\nthe horrors of a war of revenge to those of a war for gold.\n\nThe deepest springs of their hate, however, bubbled in their blood. In\ngenius, temper and ambition, the two peoples were of opposite extremes.\nIt is very singular that we never hear in the Old Testament of the\nEdomite gods. Israel fell under the fascination of every neighbouring\nidolatry, but does not even mention that Edom had a religion. Such a\nsilence cannot be accidental, and the inference which it suggests is\nconfirmed by the picture drawn of Esau himself. Esau is a _profane\nperson_[519]; with no conscience of a birthright, no faith in the\nfuture, no capacity for visions; dead to the unseen, and clamouring\nonly for the satisfaction of his appetites. The same was probably the\ncharacter of his descendants; who had, of course, their own gods, like\nevery other people in that Semitic world,[520] but were essentially\nirreligious, living for food, spoil and vengeance, with no national\nconscience or ideals\u2014a kind of people who deserved even more than the\nPhilistines to have their name descend to our times as a symbol of\nhardness and obscurantism. It is no contradiction to all this that the\none intellectual quality imputed to the Edomites should be that of\nshrewdness and a wisdom which was obviously worldly. _The wise men of\nEdom, the cleverness of Mount Esau_[521] were notorious. It is the race\nwhich has given to history only the Herods\u2014clever, scheming, ruthless\nstatesmen, as able as they were false and bitter, as shrewd in policy\nas they were destitute of ideals. _That fox_, cried Christ, and crying\nstamped the race.\n\nBut of such a national character Israel was in all points, save that\nof cunning, essentially the reverse. Who had such a passion for the\nideal? Who such a hunger for the future, such hopes or such visions?\nNever more than in the day of their prostration, when Jerusalem and the\nsanctuary fell in ruins, did they feel and hate the hardness of the\nbrother, who _stood aloof_ and _made large his mouth_.[522]\n\nIt is, therefore, no mere passion for revenge, which inspires these\nfew, hot verses of Obadiah. No doubt, bitter memories rankle in his\nheart. He eagerly repeats[523] the voices of a day when Israel matched\nEdom in cruelty and was cruel for the sake of gold, when Judah\u2019s kings\ncoveted Esau\u2019s treasures and were foiled. No doubt there is exultation\nin the news he hears, that these treasures have been rifled by others;\nthat all the cleverness of this proud people has not availed against\nits treacherous allies; and that it has been sent packing to its\nborders.[524] But beneath such savage tempers, there beats the heart\nwhich has fought and suffered for the highest things, and now in its\nmartyrdom sees them baffled and mocked by a people without vision and\nwithout feeling. Justice, mercy and truth; the education of humanity in\nthe law of God, the establishment of His will upon earth\u2014these things,\nit is true, are not mentioned in the Book of Obadiah, but it is for the\nsake of some dim instinct of them that its wrath is poured upon foes\nwhose treachery and malice seek to make them impossible by destroying\nthe one people on earth who then believed and lived for them. Consider\nthe situation. It was the darkest hour of Israel\u2019s history. City and\nTemple had fallen, the people had been carried away. Up over the empty\nland the waves of mocking heathen had flowed, there was none to beat\nthem back. A Jew who had lived through these things, who had seen[525]\nthe day of Jerusalem\u2019s fall and passed from her ruins under the mocking\nof her foes, dared to cry back into the large mouths they made: Our day\nis not spent; we shall return with the things we live for; the land\nshall yet be ours, and the kingdom our God\u2019s.\n\nBrave, hot heart! It shall be as thou sayest; it shall be for a brief\nseason. But in exile thy people and thou have first to learn many more\nthings about the heathen than you can now feel. Mix with them on that\nfar-off coast, from which thou criest. Learn what the world is, and\nthat more beautiful and more possible than the narrow rule which thou\nhast promised to Israel over her neighbours shall be that worldwide\nservice of man, of which, in fifty years, all the best of thy people\nshall be dreaming.\n\nThe Book of Obadiah at the beginning of the Exile, and the great\nprophecy of the Servant at the end of it\u2014how true was his word who\nsaid: _He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall\ndoubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him._\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe subsequent history of Israel and Edom may be quickly traced. When\nthe Jews returned from exile they found the Edomites in possession of\nall the Negeb, and of the Mountain of Judah far north of Hebron. The\nold warfare was resumed, and not till 130 B.C. (as has been already\nsaid) did a Jewish king bring the old enemies of his people beneath\nthe Law of Jehovah. The Jewish scribes transferred the name of Edom\nto Rome, as if it were the perpetual symbol of that hostility of the\nheathen world, against which Israel had to work out her calling as\nthe peculiar people of God. Yet Israel had not done with the Edomites\nthemselves. Never did she encounter foes more dangerous to her higher\ninterests than in her Idumean dynasty of the Herods; while the savage\nrelentlessness of certain Edomites in the last struggles against Rome\nproved that the fire which had scorched her borders for a thousand\nyears, now burned a still more fatal flame within her. More than\nanything else, this Edomite fanaticism provoked the splendid suicide of\nIsrael, which beginning in Galilee was consummated upon the rocks of\nMasada, half-way between Jerusalem and Mount Esau.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[509] Amos i. 11. See Vol. I., p. 129.\n\n[510] John Hyrcanus, about 130 B.C.\n\n[511] Irby and Mangles\u2019 _Travels_: cf. Burckhardt\u2019s _Travels in Syria_,\nand Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, I.\n\n[512] Obadiah 3.\n\n[513] Amos i.: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 5.\n\n[514] Obadiah 10.\n\n[515] _C. I. S._, II. i. 183 ff.\n\n[516] Obadiah 6.\n\n[517] Verse 6.\n\n[518] See the details in Vol. I., pp. 129 f.\n\n[519] Heb. xii. 16.\n\n[520] We even know the names of some of these deities from the\ntheophorous names of Edomites: _e.g._ Baal-chanan (Gen. xxxvi. 38),\nHadad (_ib._ 35; 1 Kings xi. 14 ff.); Malikram, \u1e32ausmalaka, \u1e32ausgabri\n(on Assyrian inscriptions: Schrader, _K.A.T._\u00b2 150, 613); \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03b1\u03b4\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2,\n\u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03b2\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03b3\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 (_Rev. arch\u00e9ol._ 1870, I. pp. 109 ff.,\n170 ff.), \u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 (Jos., XV. _Ant._ vii. 9). See Baethgen, _Beitr\u00e4ge\nzur Semit. Rel. Gesch._, pp. 10 ff.\n\n[521] Obadiah 8: cf. Jer. xlix. 7.\n\n[522] Obadiah 11, 12: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 12 f.\n\n[523] 1-5 or 6. See above, pp. 167, 171 f.\n\n[524] Verse 7.\n\n[525] See above, p. 171.\n\n\n\n\n _INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF THE PERSIAN PERIOD_\n\n (539\u2014331 B.C.)\n\n\n\n\n\u201cThe exiles returned from Babylon to found not a kingdom but a church.\u201d\n\n KIRKPATRICK.\n\n\u201cIsrael is no longer a kingdom, but a colony\u201d (p. 189).\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XV\n\n _ISRAEL UNDER THE PERSIANS_ (539\u2014331 B.C.)\n\n\nThe next group of the Twelve Prophets\u2014Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and\nperhaps Joel\u2014fall within the period of the Persian Empire. The Persian\nEmpire was founded on the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 B.C.,\nand it fell in the defeat of Darius III. by Alexander the Great at the\nbattle of Gaugamela, or Arbela, in 331. The period is thus one of a\nlittle more than two centuries.\n\nDuring all this time Israel were the subjects of the Persian monarchs,\nand bound to them and their civilisation by the closest of ties. They\nowed them their liberty and revival as a separate community upon its\nown land. The Jewish State\u2014if we may give that title to what is perhaps\nmore truly described as a Congregation or Commune\u2014was part of an empire\nwhich stretched from the \u00c6gean to the Indus, and the provinces of\nwhich were held in close intercourse by the first system of roads and\nposts that ever brought different races together. Jews were scattered\nalmost everywhere across this empire. A vast number still remained in\nBabylon, and there were many at Susa and Ecbatana, two of the royal\ncapitals. Most of these were subject to the full influence of Aryan\nmanners and religion; some were even members of the Persian Court and\nhad access to the Royal Presence. In the Delta of Egypt there were\nJewish settlements, and Jews were found also throughout Syria and\nalong the coasts, at least, of Asia Minor. Here they touched another\ncivilisation, destined to impress them in the future even more deeply\nthan the Persian. It is the period of the struggle between Asia\nand Europe, between Persia and Greece: the period of Marathon and\nThermopyl\u00e6, of Salamis and Plat\u00e6a, of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand.\nGreek fleets occupied Cyprus and visited the Delta. Greek armies\u2014in the\npay of Persia\u2014trod for the first time the soil of Syria.[526]\n\nIn such a world, dominated for the first time by the Aryan, Jews\nreturned from exile, rebuilt their Temple and resumed its ritual,\nrevived Prophecy and codified the Law: in short, restored and organised\nIsrael as the people of God, and developed their religion to those\nultimate forms in which it has accomplished its supreme service to the\nworld.\n\nIn this period Prophecy does not maintain that lofty position which\nit has hitherto held in the life of Israel, and the reasons for its\ndecline are obvious. To begin with, the national life, from which it\nsprings, is of a far poorer quality. Israel is no longer a kingdom,\nbut a colony. The state is not independent: there is virtually no\nstate. The community is poor and feeble, cut off from all the habit\nand prestige of their past, and beginning the rudiments of life\nagain in hard struggle with nature and hostile tribes. To this level\nProphecy has to descend, and occupy itself with these rudiments.\nWe miss the civic atmosphere, the great spaces of public life, the\nlarge ethical issues. Instead we have tearful questions, raised by\na grudging soil and bad seasons, with all the petty selfishness of\nhunger-bitten peasants. The religious duties of the colony are mainly\necclesiastical: the building of a temple, the arrangement of ritual,\nand the ceremonial discipline of the people in separation from their\nheathen neighbours. We miss, too, the clear outlook of the earlier\nprophets upon the history of the world, and their calm, rational grasp\nof its forces. The world is still seen, and even to further distances\nthan before. The people abate no whit of their ideal to be the teachers\nof mankind. But it is all through another medium. The lurid air of\nApocalypse envelops the future, and in their weakness to grapple either\npolitically or philosophically with the problems which history offers,\nthe prophets resort to the expectation of physical catastrophes and\nof the intervention of supernatural armies. Such an atmosphere is not\nthe native air of Prophecy, and Prophecy yields its supreme office\nin Israel to other forms of religious development. On one side the\necclesiastic comes to the front\u2014the legalist, the organiser of ritual,\nthe priest; on another, the teacher, the moralist, the thinker and the\nspeculator. At the same time personal religion is perhaps more deeply\ncultivated than at any other stage of the people\u2019s history. A large\nnumber of lyrical pieces bear proof to the existence of a very genuine\nand beautiful piety throughout the period.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\nUnfortunately the Jewish records for this time are both fragmentary\nand confused; they touch the general history of the world only at\nintervals, and give rise to a number of difficult questions, some\nof which are insoluble. The clearest and only consecutive line of\ndata through the period is the list of the Persian monarchs. The\nPersian Empire, 539\u2014331, was sustained through eleven reigns and two\nusurpations, of which the following is a chronological table:\u2014\n\n Cyrus (Kurush) the Great 539\u2014529\n Cambyses (Kambujiya) 529\u2014522\n Pseudo-Smerdis, or Baradis 522\n Darius (Darayahush) I., Hystaspis 521\u2014485\n Xerxes (Kshayarsha) I. 485\u2014464\n Artaxerxes (Artakshathra) I., Longimanus 464\u2014424\n Xerxes II. 424\u2014423\n Sogdianus 423\n Darius II., Nothus 423\u2014404\n Artaxerxes II., Mnemon 404\u2014358\n Artaxerxes III., Ochus 358\u2014338\n Arses 338\u2014335\n Darius III., Codomanus 335\u2014331\n\nOf these royal names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus) and Artaxerxes\nare given among the Biblical data; but the fact that there are three\nDarius\u2019, two Xerxes\u2019 and three Artaxerxes\u2019 makes possible more than\none set of identifications, and has suggested different chronological\nschemes of Jewish history during this period. The simplest and most\ngenerally accepted identification of the Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus)\nand Artaxerxes of the Biblical history,[527] is that they were the\nfirst Persian monarchs of these names; and after needful rearrangement\nof the somewhat confused order of events in the narrative of the Book\nof Ezra, it was held as settled that, while the exiles returned under\nCyrus about 537, Haggai and Zechariah prophesied and the Temple was\nbuilt under Darius I. between the second and the sixth year of his\nreign, or from 520 to 516; that attempts were made to build the walls\nof Jerusalem under Xerxes I. (485\u2014464), but especially under Artaxerxes\nI. (464\u2014424), under whom first Ezra in 458 and then Nehemiah in 445\narrived at Jerusalem, promulgated the Law and reorganised Israel.\n\nBut this has by no means satisfied all modern critics. Some in the\ninterests of the authenticity and correct order of the Book of Ezra,\nand some for other reasons, argue that the Darius under whom the Temple\nwas built was Darius II., or Nothus, 423\u2014404, and thus bring down\nthe building of the Temple and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah a\nwhole century later than the accepted theory;[528] and that therefore\nthe Artaxerxes, under whom Ezra and Nehemiah laboured, was not the\nfirst Artaxerxes, or Longimanus (464\u2014424), but the second, or Mnemon\n(404\u2014358).[529] This arrangement of the history finds some support\nin the data, and especially in the _order_ of the data, furnished by\nthe Book of Ezra, which describes the building of the Temple under\nDarius _after_ its record of events under Xerxes I. (Ahasuerus) and\nArtaxerxes I.[530] But, as we shall see in the next chapter, the\nCompiler of the Book of Ezra has seen fit, for some reason, to violate\nthe chronological order of the data at his disposal, and nothing\nreliable can be built upon his arrangement. Unravel his somewhat\nconfused history, take the contemporary data supplied in Haggai and\nZechariah, add to them the historical probabilities of the time, and\nyou will find, as the three Dutch scholars Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and\nKosters have done,[531] that the rebuilding of the Temple cannot\npossibly be dated so late as the reign of the second Darius (423\u2014404),\nbut must be left, according to the usual acceptation, under Darius I.\n(521\u2014485). Haggai, for instance, plainly implies that among those who\nsaw the Temple rising were men who had seen its predecessor destroyed\nin 586,[532] and Zechariah declares that God\u2019s wrath on Jerusalem has\njust lasted seventy years.[533] Nor (however much his confusion may\ngive grounds to the contrary) can the Compiler of the Book of Ezra\nhave meant any other reign for the building of the Temple than that\nof Darius I. He mentions that nothing was done to the Temple _all the\ndays of Cyrus and up to the reign of Darius_:[534] by this he cannot\nintend to pass over the first Darius and leap on three more reigns, or\na century, to Darius II. He mentions Zerubbabel and Jeshua both as at\nthe head of the exiles who returned under Cyrus, and as presiding at\nthe building of the Temple under Darius.[535] If alive in 536, they may\nwell have been alive in 521, but cannot have survived till 423.[536]\nThese data are fully supported by the historical probabilities. It is\ninconceivable that the Jews should have delayed the building of the\nTemple for more than a century from the time of Cyrus. That the Temple\nwas built by Zerubbabel and Jeshua in the beginning of the reign of\nDarius I. may be considered as one of the unquestionable data of our\nperiod.\n\nBut if this be so, then there falls away a great part of the argument\nfor placing the building of the walls of Jerusalem and the labours of\nEzra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II. (404\u2014358) instead of Artaxerxes\nI. It is true that some who accept the building of the Temple under\nDarius I. nevertheless put Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II.\nThe weakness of their case, however, has been clearly exposed by\nKuenen,[537] who proves that Nehemiah\u2019s mission to Jerusalem must have\nfallen in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes I., or 445.[538] \u201cOn this\nfact there can be no further difference of opinion.\u201d[539]\n\nThese two dates then are fixed: the beginning of the Temple in 520 by\nZerubbabel and Jeshua, and the arrival of Nehemiah at Jerusalem in\n445. Other points are more difficult to establish, and in particular\nthere rests a great obscurity on the date of the two visits of Ezra to\nJerusalem. According to the Book of Ezra,[540] he went there first in\nthe seventh year of Artaxerxes I., or 458 B.C., thirteen years before\nthe arrival of Nehemiah. He found many Jews married to heathen wives,\nlaid it to heart, and called a general assembly of the people to drive\nthe latter out of the community. Then we hear no more of him: neither\nin the negotiations with Artaxerxes about the building of the walls,\nnor upon the arrival of Nehemiah, nor in Nehemiah\u2019s treatment of the\nmixed marriages. He is absent from everything, till suddenly he appears\nagain at the dedication of the walls by Nehemiah and at the reading of\nthe Law.[541] This \u201ceclipse of Ezra,\u201d as Kuenen well calls it, taken\nwith the mixed character of all the records left of him, has moved some\nto deny to him and his reforms and his promulgation of the Law any\nhistorical reality whatever;[542] while others, with a more sober and\nrational criticism, have sought to solve the difficulties by another\narrangement of the events than that usually accepted. Van Hoonacker\nmakes Ezra\u2019s _first_ appearance in Jerusalem to be at the dedication of\nthe walls and promulgation of the Law in 445, and refers his arrival\ndescribed in Ezra vii. and his attempts to abolish the mixed marriages\nto a second visit to Jerusalem in the twentieth year, not of Artaxerxes\nI., but of Artaxerxes II., or 398 B.C. Kuenen has exposed the extreme\nunlikelihood, if not impossibility, of so late a date for Ezra, and\nin this Kosters holds with him.[543] But Kosters agrees with Van\nHoonacker in placing Ezra\u2019s activity subsequent to Nehemiah\u2019s and to\nthe dedication of the walls.\n\nThese questions about Ezra have little bearing on our present study\nof the prophets, and it is not our duty to discuss them. But Kuenen,\nin answer to Van Hoonacker, has shown very strong reasons[544] for\nholding in the main to the generally accepted theory of Ezra\u2019s arrival\nin Jerusalem in 458, the seventh year of Artaxerxes I.; and though\nthere are great difficulties about the narrative which follows, and\nespecially about Ezra\u2019s sudden disappearance from the scene till after\nNehemiah\u2019s arrival, reasons may be found for this.[545]\n\nWe are therefore justified in holding, in the meantime, to the\ntraditional arrangement of the great events in Israel in the fifth\ncentury before Christ. We may divide the whole Persian period by the\ntwo points we have found to be certain, the beginning of the Temple\nunder Darius I. in 520 and the mission of Nehemiah to Jerusalem in 445,\nand by the other that we have found to be probable, Ezra\u2019s arrival in\n458.\n\nOn these data the Persian period may be arranged under the following\nfour sections, among which we place those prophets who respectively\nbelong to them:\u2014\n\n1. From the Taking of Babylon by Cyrus to the Completion of the Temple\nin the sixth year of Darius I., 538\u2014516: Haggai and Zechariah in 520 ff.\n\n2. From the Completion of the Temple under Darius I. to the arrival of\nEzra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I., 516\u2014458: sometimes called\nthe period of silence, but probably yielding the Book of \u201cMalachi.\u201d\n\n3. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes I., Longimanus,\n458\u2014425.\n\n4. The Rest of the Period, Xerxes II. to Darius III., 425\u2014331: the\nprophet Joel and perhaps several other anonymous fragments of prophecy.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOf these four sections we must now examine the first, for it forms\nthe necessary introduction to our study of Haggai and Zechariah, and\nabove all it raises a question almost greater than any of those we\nhave just been discussing. The fact recorded by the Book of Ezra, and\ntill a few years ago accepted without doubt by tradition and modern\ncriticism, the first Return of Exiles from Babylon under Cyrus, has\nlately been altogether denied; and the builders of the Temple in 520\nhave been asserted to be, not returned exiles, but the remnant of Jews\nleft in Judah by Nebuchadrezzar in 586. The importance of this for our\ninterpretation of Haggai and Zechariah, who instigated the building of\nthe Temple, is obvious: we must discuss the question in detail.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[526] The chief authorities for this period are as follows:\u2014A. Ancient:\nthe inscriptions of Nabonidus, last native King of Babylon, Cyrus and\nDarius I.; the Hebrew writings which were composed in, or record the\nhistory of, the period; the Greek historians Herodotus, fragments of\nCtesias in Diodorus Sic. etc., of Abydenus in Eusebius, Berosus. B.\nModern: Meyer\u2019s and Duncker\u2019s Histories of Antiquity; art. \u201cAncient\nPersia\u201d in _Encycl. Brit._, by N\u00f6ldeke and Gutschmid; Sayce, _Anc.\nEmpires_; the works of Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and Kosters given on p.\n192; recent histories of Israel, _e.g._ Stade\u2019s, Wellhausen\u2019s and\nKlostermann\u2019s; P. Hay Hunter, _After the Exile, a Hundred Years of\nJewish History and Literature_, 2 Vols., Edin. 1890; W. Fairweather,\n_From the Exile to the Advent_, Edin. 1895. On Ezra and Nehemiah see\nespecially Ryle\u2019s _Commentary_ in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_,\nand Bertheau-Ryssel\u2019s in _Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch_: cf.\nalso Charles C. Torrey, _The Composition and Historical Value of\nEzra-Nehemiah_, in the _Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W._, II., 1896.\n\n[527] Ezra iv. 5-7, etc., vi. 1-14, etc.\n\n[528] Havet, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, XCIV. 799 ff. (art. _La Modernit\u00e9\ndes Proph\u00e8tes_); Imbert (in defence of the historical character of\nthe Book of Ezra), _Le Temple Reconstruit par Zorobabel_, extrait du\n_Mus\u00e9on_, 1888-9 (this I have not seen); Sir Henry Howorth in the\n_Academy_ for 1893\u2014see especially pp. 320 ff.\n\n[529] Another French writer, Bellang\u00e9, in the _Mus\u00e9on_ for 1890, quoted\nby Kuenen (_Ges. Abhandl._, p. 213), goes further, and places Ezra and\nNehemiah under the _third_ Artaxerxes, Ochus (358\u2014338).\n\n[530] Ezra iv. 6\u2014v.\n\n[531] Kuenen, _De Chronologie van het Perzische Tijdvak der Joodsche\nGeschiedenis_, 1890, translated by Budde in Kuenen\u2019s _Gesammelte\nAbhandlungen_, pp. 212 ff.; Van Hoonacker, _Zorobabel et le Second\nTemple_ (1892); Kosters, _Het Herstel van Israel_, in _Het Perzische\nTijdvak_, 1894, translated by Basedow, _Die Wiederherstellung Israels\nim Persischen Zeitalter_, 1896.\n\n[532] Hag. ii. 3.\n\n[533] Zech. i. 12.\n\n[534] Ezra iv. 5.\n\n[535] Ezra ii. 2, iv. 1 ff., v. 2.\n\n[536] As Kuenen shows, p. 226, nothing can be deduced from Ezra vi. 14.\n\n[537] P. 227; in answer to De Saulcy, _\u00c9tude Chronologique des Livres\nd\u2019Esdras et de N\u00e9h\u00e9mie_ (1868), _Sept Si\u00e8cles de l\u2019Histoire Juda\u00efque_\n(1874). De Saulcy\u2019s case rests on the account of Josephus (XI. _Ant._\nvii. 2-8: cf. ix. 1), the untrustworthy character of which and its\nconfusion of two distant eras Kuenen has no difficulty in showing.\n\n[538] When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem Eliyashib was high priest, and\nhe was grandson of Jeshua, who was high priest in 520, or seventy-five\nyears before; but between 520 and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes II.\nlie one hundred and thirty-six years. And again, the Artaxerxes of\nEzra iv. 8-23, under whom the walls of Jerusalem were begun, was the\nimmediate follower of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and therefore Artaxerxes I.,\nand Van Hoonacker has shown that he must be the same as the Artaxerxes\nof Nehemiah.\n\n[539] Kosters, p. 43.\n\n[540] vii. 1-8.\n\n[541] Neh. xii. 36, viii., x.\n\n[542] Vernes, _Pr\u00e9cis d\u2019Histoire Juive depuis les Origines jusqu\u2019\u00e0\nl\u2019\u00c9poque Persane_ (1889), pp. 579 ff. (not seen); more recently also\nCharles C. Torrey of Andover, _The Composition and Historical Value of\nEzra-Nehemiah_, in the _Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W._, II., 1896.\n\n[543] Pages 113 ff.\n\n[544] Page 237.\n\n[545] The failure of his too hasty and impetuous attempts at so\nwholesale a measure as the banishment of the heathen wives; or his\nreturn to Babylon, having accomplished his end. See Ryle, _Ezra and\nNehemiah_, in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_, Introd., pp. xl. f.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVI\n\n _FROM THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE_\n\n (536\u2014516 B. C.)\n\n\nCyrus the Great took Babylon and the Babylonian Empire in 539. Upon the\neve of his conquest the Second Isaiah had hailed him as the Liberator\nof the people of God and the builder of their Temple. The Return of\nthe Exiles and the Restoration both of Temple and City were predicted\nby the Second Isaiah for the immediate future; and a Jewish historian,\nthe Compiler of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived about 300\nB.C., has taken up the story of how these events came to pass from\nthe very first year of Cyrus onward. Before discussing the dates and\nproper order of these events, it will be well to have this Chronicler\u2019s\nnarrative before us. It lies in the first and following chapters of\nour Book of Ezra.\n\nAccording to this, Cyrus, soon after his conquest of Babylon, gave\npermission to the Jewish exiles to return to Palestine, and between\nforty and fifty thousand[546] did so return, bearing the vessels of\nJehovah\u2019s house which the Chaldeans had taken away in 586. These Cyrus\ndelivered _to Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah_[547] (who is further\ndescribed in an Aramaic document incorporated by the Compiler of the\nBook of Ezra as \u201cPe\u1e25ah,\u201d or _provincial governor_,[548] and as laying\nthe foundation of the Temple[549]), and there is also mentioned in\ncommand of the people a Tirshatha, probably the Persian Tars\u00e2ta,[550]\nwhich also means _provincial governor_. Upon their arrival at\nJerusalem, the date of which will be immediately discussed, the\npeople are said to be under Jeshu\u2019a ben J\u014d\u1e63adak[551] and Zerubbabel\nben She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el,[552] who had already been mentioned as the head of\nthe returning exiles,[553] and who is called by his contemporary\nHaggai Pe\u1e25ah, or _governor, of Judah_.[554] Are we to understand by\nSheshbazzar and Zerubbabel one and the same person? Most critics have\nanswered in the affirmative, believing that Sheshbazzar is but the\nBabylonian or Persian name by which the Jew Zerubbabel was known at\ncourt;[555] and this view is supported by the facts that Zerubbabel\nwas of the house of David and is called Pe\u1e25ah by Haggai, and by the\nargument that the command given by the Tirshatha to the Jews to abstain\nfrom _eating the most holy things_[556] could only have been given\nby a native Jew.[557] But others, arguing that Ezra v. 1, compared\nwith vv. 14 and 16, implies that Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar were two\ndifferent persons, take the former to have been the most prominent of\nthe Jews themselves, but the latter an official, Persian or Babylonian,\nappointed by Cyrus to carry out such business in connection with the\nReturn as could only be discharged by an imperial officer.[558] This\nis, on the whole, the more probable theory.\n\nIf it is right, Sheshbazzar, who superintended the Return, had\ndisappeared from Jerusalem by 521, when Haggai commenced to prophesy,\nand had been succeeded as Pe\u1e25ah, or governor, by Zerubbabel. But in\nthat case the Compiler has been in error in calling Sheshbazzar _a\nprince of Judah_.[559]\n\nThe next point to fix is what the Compiler considers to have been the\ndate of the Return. He names no year, but he recounts that the same\npeople, whom he has just described as receiving the command of Cyrus\nto return, did immediately leave Babylon,[560] and he says that they\narrived at Jerusalem in _the seventh month_, but again without stating\na year.[561] In any case, he obviously intends to imply that the Return\nfollowed immediately on reception of the permission to return, and\nthat this was given by Cyrus very soon after his occupation of Babylon\nin 539\u20148. We may take it that the Compiler understood the year to be\nthat we know as 537 B.C. He adds that, on the arrival of the caravans\nfrom Babylon, the Jews set up the altar on its old site and restored\nthe morning and evening sacrifices; that they kept also the Feast of\nTabernacles, and thereafter all the rest of the _feasts of Jehovah_;\nand further, that they engaged masons and carpenters for building the\nTemple, and Ph\u0153nicians to bring them cedar-wood from Lebanon.[562]\n\nAnother section from the Compiler\u2019s hand states that the returned Jews\nset to work upon the Temple _in the second month of the second year_\nof their Return, presumably 536 B.C., laying the foundation-stone with\ndue pomp, and amid the excitement of the whole people.[563] Whereupon\ncertain _adversaries_, by whom the Compiler means Samaritans, demanded\na share in the building of the Temple, and when Jeshua and Zerubbabel\nrefused this, _the people of the land_ frustrated the building of the\nTemple even until the reign of Darius, 521 ff.\n\nThis\u2014the second year of Darius\u2014is the point to which contemporary\ndocuments, the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, assign the\nbeginning of new measures to build the Temple. Of these the Compiler\nof the Book of Ezra says in the meantime nothing, but after barely\nmentioning the reign of Darius leaps at once[564] to further Samaritan\nobstructions\u2014though not of the building of the Temple (be it noted),\nbut of the building of the city walls\u2014in the reigns of Ahasuerus, that\nis Xerxes, presumably Xerxes I., the successor of Darius, 485\u2014464,\nand of his successor Artaxerxes I., 464\u2014424;[565] the account of the\nlatter of which he gives not in his own language but in that of an\nAramaic document, Ezra iv. 8 ff. And this document, after recounting\nhow Artaxerxes empowered the Samaritans to stop the building of the\nwalls of Jerusalem, records[566] that the building ceased _till the\nsecond year of the reign of Darius_, when the prophets Haggai and\nZechariah stirred up Zerubbabel and Jeshua to rebuild, not the city\nwalls, be it observed, but the Temple, and with the permission of\nDarius this building was at last completed in his sixth year.[567] That\nis to say, this Aramaic document brings us back, with _the frustrated\nbuilding of the walls_ under Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. (485\u2014424),\nto the same date under their predecessor Darius I., viz. 520, to\nwhich the Compiler had brought down _the frustrated building of the\nTemple_! The most reasonable explanation of this confusion, not only of\nchronology, but of two distinct processes\u2014the erection of the Temple\nand the fortification of the city\u2014is that the Compiler was misled by\nhis desire to give as strong an impression as possible of the Samaritan\nobstructions by placing them all together. Attempts to harmonise the\norder of his narrative with the ascertained sequence of the Persian\nreigns have failed.[568]\n\nSuch then is the character of the compilation known to us as the Book\nof Ezra. If we add that in its present form it cannot be of earlier\ndate than 300 B.C., or two hundred and thirty-six years after the\nReturn, and that the Aramaic document which it incorporates is probably\nnot earlier than 430, or one hundred years after the Return, while the\nList of Exiles which it gives (in chap. ii.) also contains elements\nthat cannot be earlier than 430, we shall not wonder that grave doubts\nshould have been raised concerning its trustworthiness as a narrative.\n\nThese doubts affect, with one exception, all the great facts which\nit professes to record. The exception is the building of the Temple\nbetween the second and sixth years of Darius I., 520\u2014516, which we\nhave already seen to be past doubt.[569] But all that the Book of\nEzra relates before this has been called in question, and it has been\nsuccessively alleged: (1) that there was no such attempt as the book\ndescribes to build the Temple before 520, (2) that there was no Return\nof Exiles at all under Cyrus, and that the Temple was not built by Jews\nwho had come from Babylon, but by Jews who had never left Judah.\n\nThese conclusions, if justified, would have the most important bearing\nupon our interpretation of Haggai and Zechariah. It is therefore\nnecessary to examine them with care. They were reached by critics in\nthe order just stated, but as the second is the more sweeping and to\nsome extent involves the other, we may take it first.\n\n1. Is the Book of Ezra, then, right or wrong in asserting that there\nwas a great return of Jews, headed by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, about the\nyear 536, and that it was they who in 520\u2014516 rebuilt the Temple?\n\nThe argument that in recounting these events the Book of Ezra is\nunhistorical has been fully stated by Professor Kosters of Leiden.[570]\nHe reaches his conclusion along three lines of evidence: the Books of\nHaggai and Zechariah, the sources from which he believes the Aramaic\nnarrative Ezra v. 1\u2014vi. 18 to have been compiled, and the list of names\nin Ezra ii. In the Books of Haggai and Zechariah, he points out that\nthe inhabitants of Jerusalem whom the prophets summon to build the\nTemple are not called by any name which implies that they are returned\nexiles; that nothing in the description of them would lead us to\nsuppose this; that God\u2019s anger against Israel is represented as still\nunbroken; that neither prophet speaks of a Return as past, but that\nZechariah seems to look for it as still to come.[571] The second line\nof evidence is an analysis of the Aramaic document, Ezra v. 6 ff., into\ntwo sources, neither of which implies a Return under Cyrus. But these\ntwo lines of proof cannot avail against the List of Returned Exiles\noffered us in Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii., if the latter be genuine.\nOn his third line of evidence, Dr. Kosters, therefore, disputes the\ngenuineness of this List, and further denies that it even gives itself\nout as a List of Exiles returned under Cyrus. So he arrives at the\nconclusion that there was no Return from Babylon under Cyrus, nor any\nbefore the Temple was built in 520 ff., but that the builders were\n_people of the land_, Jews who had never gone into exile.\n\nThe evidence which Dr. Kosters draws from the Book of Ezra least\nconcerns us. Both because of this and because it is the weakest part of\nhis case, we may take it first.\n\nDr. Kosters analyses the bulk of the Aramaic document, Ezra v.\u2014vi. 18,\ninto two constituents. His arguments for this are very precarious.[572]\nThe first document, which he takes to consist of chap. v. 1-5 and 10,\nwith perhaps vi. 6-15 (except a few phrases), relates that Thathnai,\nSatrap of the West of the Euphrates, asked Darius whether he might\nallow the Jews to proceed with the building of the Temple, and received\ncommand not only to allow but to help them, on the ground that Cyrus\nhad already given them permission. The second, chap. v. 11-17, vi.\n1-3, affirms that the building had actually begun under Cyrus, who\nhad sent Sheshbazzar, the Satrap, to see it carried out. Neither of\nthese documents says a word about any order from Cyrus to the Jews to\nreturn; and the implication of the second, that the building had gone\non uninterruptedly from the time of Cyrus\u2019 order to the second year\nof Darius,[573] is not in harmony with the evidence of the Compiler\nof the Book of Ezra, who, as we have seen,[574] states that Samaritan\nobstruction stayed the building till the second year of Darius.\n\nBut suppose we accept Kosters\u2019 premisses and agree that these two\ndocuments really exist within Ezra v.\u2014vi. 18. Their evidence is not\nirreconcilable. Both imply that Cyrus gave command to rebuild the\nTemple: if they were originally independent that would but strengthen\nthe tradition of such a command, and render a little weaker Dr.\nKosters\u2019 contention that the tradition arose merely from a desire to\nfind a fulfilment of the Second Isaiah\u2019s predictions[575] that Cyrus\nwould be the Temple\u2019s builder. That neither of the supposed documents\nmentions the Return itself is very natural, because both are concerned\nwith the building of the Temple. For the Compiler of the Book of Ezra,\nwho on Kosters\u2019 argument put them together, the interest of the Return\nis over; he has already sufficiently dealt with it. But more\u2014Kosters\u2019\nsecond document, which ascribes the building of the Temple to Cyrus,\nsurely by that very statement implies a Return of Exiles during his\nreign. For is it at all probable that Cyrus would have committed the\nrebuilding of the Temple to a Persian magnate like Sheshbazzar, without\nsending with him a large number of those Babylonian Jews who must have\ninstigated the king to give his order for rebuilding? We may conclude\nthen that Ezra v.\u2014vi. 18, whatever be its value and its date, contains\nno evidence, positive or negative, against a Return of the Jews under\nCyrus, but, on the contrary, takes this for granted.\n\nWe turn now to Dr. Kosters\u2019 treatment of the so-called List of the\nReturned Exiles. He holds this List to have been, not only borrowed for\nits place in Ezra ii. from Nehemiah vii.,[576] but even interpolated in\nthe latter. His reasons for this latter conclusion are very improbable,\nas will be seen from the appended note, and really weaken his otherwise\nstrong case.[577] As to the contents of the List, there are, it is\ntrue, many elements which date from Nehemiah\u2019s own time and even later.\nBut these are not sufficient to prove that the List was not originally\na List of Exiles returned under Cyrus. The verses in which this is\nasserted\u2014Ezra ii. 1, 2; Nehemiah vii. 6, 7\u2014plainly intimate that those\nJews who came up out of the Exile were the same who built the Temple\nunder Darius. Dr. Kosters endeavours to destroy the force of this\nstatement (if true so destructive of his theory) by pointing to the\nnumber of the leaders which the List assigns to the returning exiles.\nIn fixing this number as twelve, the author, Kosters maintains,\nintended to make the leaders representative of the twelve tribes and\nthe body of returned exiles as equivalent to All-Israel. But, he\nargues, neither Haggai nor Zechariah considers the builders of the\nTemple to be equivalent to All-Israel, nor was this conception realised\nin Judah till after the arrival of Ezra with his bands. The force of\nthis argument is greatly weakened by remembering how natural it would\nhave been for men, who felt the Return under Cyrus, however small, to\nbe the fulfilment of the Second Isaiah\u2019s glorious predictions of a\nrestoration of All-Israel, to appoint twelve leaders, and so make them\nrepresentative of the nation as a whole. Kosters\u2019 argument against the\nnaturalness of such an appointment in 537, and therefore against the\ntruth of the statement of the List about it, falls to the ground.\n\nBut in the Books of Haggai and Zechariah Dr. Kosters finds much more\nformidable witnesses for his thesis that there was no Return of exiles\nfrom Babylon before the building of the Temple under Darius. These\nbooks nowhere speak of a Return under Cyrus, nor do they call the\ncommunity who built the Temple by the names of G\u00f4lah or B\u2019ne ha-G\u00f4lah,\n_Captivity_ or _Sons of the Captivity_, which are given after the\nReturn of Ezra\u2019s bands; but they simply name them _this people_[578] or\n_remnant of the people_,[579] _people of the land_,[580] _Judah_ or\n_House of Judah_,[581] names perfectly suitable to Jews who had never\nleft the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Even if we except from this list\nthe phrase _the remnant of the people_, as intended by Haggai and\nZechariah in the numerical sense of _the rest_ or _all the\nothers_,[582] we have still to deal with the other titles, with the\nabsence from them of any symptom descriptive of return from exile, and\nwith the whole silence of our two prophets concerning such a return.\nThese are very striking phenomena, and they undoubtedly afford\nconsiderable evidence for Dr. Kosters\u2019 thesis.[583] But it cannot\nescape notice that the evidence they afford is mainly negative, and\nthis raises two questions: (1) Can the phenomena in Haggai and\nZechariah be accounted for? and (2) whether accounted for or not, can\nthey be held to prevail against the mass of positive evidence in favour\nof a Return under Cyrus?\n\nAn explanation of the absence of all allusion in Haggai and Zechariah\nto the Return is certainly possible.\n\nNo one can fail to be struck with the spirituality of the teaching of\nHaggai and Zechariah. Their one ambition is to put courage from God\ninto the poor hearts before them, that these out of their own resources\nmay rebuild their Temple. As Zechariah puts it, _Not by might, nor by\npower, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of Hosts_.[584] It is obvious\nwhy men of this temper should refrain from appealing to the Return, or\nto the royal power of Persia by which it had been achieved. We can\nunderstand why, while the annals employed in the Book of Ezra record\nthe appeal of the political leaders of the Jews to Darius upon the\nstrength of the edict of Cyrus, the prophets, in their effort to\nencourage the people to make the most of what they themselves were and\nto enforce the omnipotence of God\u2019s Spirit apart from all human aids,\nshould be silent about the latter. We must also remember that Haggai\nand Zechariah were addressing a people to whom (whatever view we take\nof the transactions under Cyrus) the favour of Cyrus had been one vast\ndisillusion in the light of the predictions of Second Isaiah.[585] The\nPersian magnate Sheshbazzar himself, invested with full power, had been\nunable to build the Temple for them, and had apparently disappeared\nfrom Judah, leaving his powers as Pe\u1e25ah, or governor, to Zerubbabel.\nWas it not, then, as suitable to these circumstances, as it was\nessential to the prophets\u2019 own religious temper, that Haggai and\nZechariah should refrain from alluding to any of the political\nadvantages, to which their countrymen had hitherto trusted in\nvain?[586]\n\nAnother fact should be marked. If Haggai is silent about any return\nfrom exile in the past, he is equally silent about any in the future.\nIf for him no return had yet taken place, would he not have been likely\nto predict it as certain to happen?[587] At least his silence on the\nsubject proves how absolutely he confined his thoughts to the\ncircumstances before him, and to the needs of his people at the moment\nhe addressed them. Kosters, indeed, alleges that Zechariah describes\nthe Return from Exile as still future\u2014viz. in the lyric piece appended\nto his Third Vision.[588] But, as we shall see when we come to it, this\nlyric piece is most probably an intrusion among the Visions, and is not\nto be assigned to Zechariah himself. Even, however, if it were from the\nsame date and author as the Visions, it would not prove that no return\nfrom Babylon had taken place, but only that numbers of Jews still\nremained in Babylon.\n\nBut we may now take a further step. If there were these natural reasons\nfor the silence of Haggai and Zechariah about a return of exiles under\nCyrus, can that silence be allowed to prevail against the mass of\ntestimony which we have that such a return took place? It is true that,\nwhile the Books of Haggai and Zechariah are contemporary with the\nperiod in question, some of the evidence for the Return, Ezra i. and\niii.\u2014iv. 7, is at least two centuries later, and upon the date of the\nrest, the List in Ezra ii. and the Aramaic document in Ezra iv. 8 ff.,\nwe have no certain information. But that the List is from a date very\nsoon after Cyrus is allowed by a large number of the most advanced\ncritics,[589] and even if we ignore it, we still have the Aramaic\ndocument, which agrees with Haggai and Zechariah in assigning the real,\neffectual beginning of the Temple-building to the second year of Darius\nand to the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua at the instigation of\nthe two prophets. May we not trust the same document in its relation of\nthe main facts concerning Cyrus? Again, in his memoirs Ezra[590] speaks\nof the transgressions of the G\u00f4lah or B\u2019ne ha-G\u00f4lah in effecting\nmarriages with the mixed people of the land, in a way which shows that\nhe means by the name, not the Jews who had just come up with himself\nfrom Babylon, but the older community whom he found in Judah, and who\nhad had time, as his own bands had not, to scatter over the land and\nenter into social relations with the heathen.\n\nBut, as Kuenen points out,[591] we have yet further evidence for the\nprobability of a Return under Cyrus, in the explicit predictions of the\nSecond Isaiah that Cyrus would be the builder of Jerusalem and the\nTemple. \u201cIf they express the expectation, nourished by the prophet and\nhis contemporaries, then it is clear from their preservation for future\ngenerations that Cyrus did not disappoint the hope of the exiles, from\nwhose midst this voice pealed forth to him.\u201d And this leads to other\nconsiderations. Whether was it more probable for the poverty-stricken\n_people of the land_, the dregs which Nebuchadrezzar had left behind,\nor for the body and flower of Israel in Babylon, to rebuild the Temple?\nSurely for the latter.[592] Among them had risen, as Cyrus drew near to\nBabylon, the hopes and the motives, nay, the glorious assurance of the\nReturn and the Rebuilding; and with them was all the material for the\nlatter. Is it credible that they took no advantage of their opportunity\nunder Cyrus? Is it credible that they waited nearly a century before\nseeking to return to Jerusalem, and that the building of the Temple was\nleft to people who were half-heathen, and, in the eyes of the exiles,\ndespicable and unholy? This would be credible only upon one condition,\nthat Cyrus and his immediate successors disappointed the predictions of\nthe Second Isaiah and refused to allow the exiles to leave Babylon. But\nthe little we know of these Persian monarchs points all the other way:\nnothing is more probable, for nothing is more in harmony with Persian\npolicy, than that Cyrus should permit the captives of the Babylon which\nhe conquered to return to their own lands.[593]\n\nMoreover, we have another, and to the mind of the present writer an\nalmost conclusive argument, that the Jews addressed by Haggai and\nZechariah were Jews returned from Babylon. Neither prophet ever charges\nhis people with idolatry; neither prophet so much as mentions idols.\nThis is natural if the congregation addressed was composed of such\npious and ardent adherents of Jehovah, as His word had brought back\nto Judah, when His servant Cyrus opened the way. But had Haggai and\nZechariah been addressing _the people of the land_, who had never left\nthe land, they could not have helped speaking of idolatry.\n\nSuch considerations may very justly be used against an argument which\nseeks to prove that the narratives of a Return under Cyrus were due to\nthe pious invention of a Jewish writer who wished to record that the\npredictions of the Second Isaiah were fulfilled by Cyrus, their\ndesignated trustee.[594] They certainly possess a far higher degree of\nprobability than that argument does.\n\nFinally there is this consideration. If there was no return from\nBabylon under Cyrus, and the Temple, as Dr. Kosters alleges, was built\nby the poor people of the land, is it likely that the latter should\nhave been regarded with such contempt as they were by the exiles who\nreturned under Ezra and Nehemiah? Theirs would then have been the glory\nof reconstituting Israel, and their position very different from what\nwe find it.\n\nOn all these grounds, therefore, we must hold that the attempt to\ndiscredit the tradition of an important return of exiles under Cyrus\nhas not been successful; that such a return remains the more probable\nsolution of an obscure and difficult problem; and that therefore the\nJews who with Zerubbabel and Jeshua are represented in Haggai and\nZechariah as building the Temple in the second year of Darius, 520,\nhad come up from Babylon about 537.[595] Such a conclusion, of course,\nneed not commit us to the various data offered by the Chronicler in\nhis story of the Return, such as the Edict of Cyrus, nor to all of his\ndetails.\n\n2. Many, however, who grant the correctness of the tradition that a\nlarge number of Jewish exiles returned under Cyrus to Jerusalem, deny\nthe statement of the Compiler of the Book of Ezra that the returned\nexiles immediately prepared to build the Temple and laid the\nfoundation-stone with solemn festival, but were hindered from\nproceeding with the building till the second year of Darius.[596] They\nmaintain that this late narrative is contradicted by the contemporary\nstatements of Haggai and Zechariah, who, according to them, imply that\nno foundation-stone was laid till 520 B.C.[597] For the interpretation\nof our prophets this is not a question of cardinal importance. But for\nclearness\u2019 sake we do well to lay it open.\n\nWe may at once concede that in Haggai and Zechariah there is nothing\nwhich necessarily implies that the Jews had made any beginning to build\nthe Temple before the start recorded by Haggai in the year 520. The one\npassage, Haggai ii. 18, which is cited to prove this[598] is at the\nbest ambiguous, and many scholars claim it as a fixture of that date\nfor the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of 520.[599] At the same\ntime, and even granting that the latter interpretation of Haggai ii. 18\nis correct, there is nothing in either Haggai or Zechariah to make it\nimpossible that a foundation-stone had been laid some years before, but\nabandoned in consequence of the Samaritan obstruction, as alleged in\nEzra iii. 8-11. If we keep in mind Haggai\u2019s and Zechariah\u2019s silence\nabout the Return from Babylon, and their very natural concentration\nupon their own circumstances,[600] we shall not be able to reckon their\nsilence about previous attempts to build the Temple as a conclusive\nproof that these attempts never took place. Moreover the Aramaic\ndocument, which agrees with our two prophets in assigning the only\neffective start of the work on the Temple to 520,[601] does not deem it\ninconsistent with this to record that the Persian Satrap of the West of\nthe Euphrates[602] reported to Darius that, when he asked the Jews why\nthey were rebuilding the Temple, they replied not only that a decree of\nCyrus had granted them permission,[603] but that his legate Sheshbazzar\nhad actually laid the foundation-stone upon his arrival at Jerusalem,\nand that the building had gone on without interruption from that time\nto 520.[604] This last assertion, which of course was false, may have\nbeen due either to a misunderstanding of the Jewish elders by the\nreporting Satrap, or else to the Jews themselves, anxious to make their\ncase as strong as possible. The latter is the more probable\nalternative. As even Stade admits, it was a very natural assertion for\nthe Jews to make, and so conceal that their effort of 520 was due to\nthe instigation of their own prophets. But in any case the Aramaic\ndocument corroborates the statement of the Compiler that there was a\nfoundation-stone laid in the early years of Cyrus, and does not\nconceive this to be inconsistent with its own narrative of a stone\nbeing laid in 520, and an effective start at last made upon the Temple\nworks. So much does Stade feel the force of this, that he concedes not\nonly that Sheshbazzar may have started some preparation for building\nthe Temple, but that he may even have laid the stone with\nceremony.[605]\n\nAnd indeed, is it not in itself very probable that some early attempt\nwas made by the exiles returned under Cyrus to rebuild the house of\nJehovah? Cyrus had been predicted by the Second Isaiah not only as the\nredeemer of God\u2019s people, but with equal explicitness as the builder\nof the Temple; and all the argument which Kuenen draws from the Second\nIsaiah for the fact of the Return from Babylon[606] tells with almost\nequal force for the fact of some efforts to raise the fallen sanctuary\nof Israel immediately after the Return. Among the returned were many\npriests, and many no doubt of the most sanguine spirits in Israel.\nThey came straight from the heart of Jewry, though that heart was\nin Babylon; they came with the impetus and obligation of the great\nDeliverance upon them; they were the representatives of a community\nwhich we know to have been comparatively wealthy. Is it credible that\nthey should not have begun the Temple at the earliest possible moment?\n\nNor is the story of their frustration by the Samaritans any less\nnatural.[607] It is true that there were not any adversaries likely to\ndispute with the colonists the land in the immediate neighbourhood of\nJerusalem. The Edomites had overrun the fruitful country about Hebron,\nand part of the Shephelah. The Samaritans held the rich valleys of\nEphraim, and probably the plain of Ajalon. But if any peasants\nstruggled with the stony plateaus of Benjamin and Northern Judah, such\nmust have been of the remnants of the Jewish population who were left\nbehind by Nebuchadrezzar, and who clung to the sacred soil from habit\nor from motives of religion. Jerusalem was never a site to attract men,\neither for agriculture, or, now that its shrine was desolate and its\npopulation scattered, for the command of trade.[608] The returned\nexiles must have been at first undisturbed by the envy of their\nneighbours. The tale is, therefore, probable which attributes the\nhostility of the latter to purely religious causes\u2014the refusal of the\nJews to allow the half-heathen Samaritans to share in the construction\nof the Temple.[609] Now the Samaritans could prevent the building.\nWhile stones were to be had by the builders in profusion from the ruins\nof the city and the great quarry to the north of it, ordinary timber\ndid not grow in their neighbourhood, and though the story be true that\na contract was already made with Ph\u0153nicians to bring cedar to Joppa, it\nhad to be carried thence for thirty-six miles. Here, then, was the\nopportunity of the Samaritans. They could obstruct the carriage both of\nthe ordinary timber and of the cedar. To this state of affairs the\npresent writer found an analogy in 1891 among the Circassian colonies\nsettled by the Turkish Government a few years earlier in the vicinity\nof Gerasa and Rabbath-Ammon. The colonists had built their houses from\nthe numerous ruins of these cities, but at Rabbath-Ammon they said\ntheir great difficulty had been about timber. And we could well\nunderstand how the Beduin, who resented the settlement of Circassians\non lands they had used for ages, and with whom the Circassians were\nnearly always at variance,[610] did what they could to make the\ncarriage of timber impossible. Similarly with the Jews and their\nSamaritan adversaries. The site might be cleared and the stone of the\nTemple laid, but if the timber was stopped there was little use in\nraising the walls, and the Jews, further discouraged by the failure of\ntheir impetuous hopes of what the Return would bring them, found cause\nfor desisting from their efforts. Bad seasons followed, the labours for\ntheir own sustenance exhausted their strength, and in the sordid toil\ntheir hearts grew hard to higher interests. Cyrus died in 529, and his\nlegate Sheshbazzar, having done nothing but lay the stone, appears to\nhave left Jud\u00e6a.[611] Cambyses marched more than once through\nPalestine, and his army garrisoned Gaza, but he was not a monarch to\nhave any consideration for Jewish ambitions. Therefore\u2014although\nSamaritan opposition ceased on the stoppage of the Temple works and the\nJews procured timber enough for their private dwellings[612]\u2014is it\nwonderful that the site of the Temple should be neglected and the stone\nlaid by Sheshbazzar forgotten, or that the disappointed Jews should\nseek to explain the disillusions of the Return, by arguing that God\u2019s\ntime for the restoration of His house had not yet come?\n\nThe death of a cruel monarch is always in the East an occasion for\nthe revival of shattered hopes, and the events which accompanied\nthe suicide of Cambyses in 522 were particularly fraught with the\npossibilities of political change. Cambyses\u2019 throne had been usurped by\none Gaumata, who pretended to be Smerdis or Barada, a son of Cyrus. In\na few months Gaumata was slain by a conspiracy of seven Persian nobles,\nof whom Darius, the son of Hystaspes, both by virtue of his royal\ndescent and by his own great ability, was raised to the throne in 521.\nThe empire had been too profoundly shocked by the revolt of Gaumata to\nsettle at once under the new king, and Darius found himself engaged by\ninsurrections in all his provinces except Syria and Asia Minor.[613]\nThe colonists in Jerusalem, like all their Syrian neighbours, remained\nloyal to the new king; so loyal that their Pe\u1e25ah or Satrap was allowed\nto be one of themselves\u2014Zerubbabel, son of She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el,[614] a son of\ntheir royal house. Yet though they were quiet, the nations were rising\nagainst each other and the world was shaken. It was just such a crisis\nas had often before in Israel rewakened prophecy. Nor did it fail\nnow; and when prophecy was roused what duty lay more clamant for its\ninspiration than the duty of building the Temple?\n\nWe are in touch with the first of our post-exilic prophets, Haggai and\nZechariah.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[546] 42,360, _besides their servants_, is the total sum given in Ezra\nii. 64; but the detailed figures in Ezra amount only to 29,818, those\nin Nehemiah to 31,089, and those in 1 Esdras to 30,143 (other MSS.\n30,678). See Ryle on Ezra ii. 64.\n\n[547] Ezra i. 8.\n\n[548] Ezra v. 14.\n\n[549] _Ib._ 16.\n\n[550] Ezra ii. 63.\n\n[551]\u200e \u05d9\u05b5\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc\u05e2\u05b7 \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05d9\u05d5\u05b9\u05e6\u05b8\u05d3\u05e7: Ezra iii. 2, like Ezra i. 1-8, from the\nCompiler of Ezra-Nehemiah.\n\n[552]\u200e \u05d6\u05b0\u05e8\u05bb\u05d1\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b6\u05dc \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05d0\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05d0\u05b5\u05dc.\n\n[553] Ezra ii. 2.\n\n[554] Hag. i. 14, ii. 2, 21, and perhaps by Nehemiah (vii. 65-70).\nNehemiah himself is styled both Pe\u1e25ah (xiv. 20) and Tirshatha (viii. 9,\nx. 1).\n\n[555] As Daniel and his three friends had also Babylonian names.\n\n[556] Ezra ii. 63.\n\n[557] Cf. Ryle, xxxi ff.; and on Ezra i. 8, ii. 63.\n\n[558] Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, II. 98 ff.: cf. Kuenen,\n_Gesammelte Abhandl._, 220.\n\n[559] Ezra i. 8.\n\n[560] Ezra i. compared with ii. 1.\n\n[561] Some think to find this in 1 Esdras v. 1-6, where it is said that\nDarius, a name they take to be an error for that of Cyrus, brought up\nthe exiles with an escort of a thousand cavalry, starting in the first\nmonth of the second year of the king\u2019s reign. This passage, however,\nis not beyond suspicion as a gloss (see Ryle on Ezra i. 11), and even\nif genuine may be intended to describe a second contingent of exiles\ndespatched by Darius I. in his second year, 520. The names given\ninclude that of Jesua, son of Josedec, and instead of Zerubbabel\u2019s,\nthat of his son Joacim.\n\n[562] Ezra iii. 3-7.\n\n[563] _Ib._ 8-13.\n\n[564] Ezra iv. 7.\n\n[565] See above, p. 193.\n\n[566] iv. 24.\n\n[567] Ezra iv. 24\u2014vi. 15.\n\n[568] There are in the main two classes of such attempts. (_a_) Some\nhave suggested that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Artaxerxes mentioned in\nEzra iv. 6 and 7 ff. are not the successors of Darius I. who bore these\nnames, but titles of his predecessors Cambyses and the Pseudo-Smerdis\n(see above, p. 190). This view has been disposed of by Kuenen, _Ges.\nAbhandl._, pp. 224 ff., and by Ryle, pp. 65 ff. (_b_) The attempt to\nprove that the Darius under whom the Temple was built was not Darius I.\n(521\u2014485), the predecessor of Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. (485\u2014424),\nbut their successor once removed, Darius II., Nothus (423\u2014404). So, in\ndefence of the Book of Ezra, Imbert. For his theory and the answer to\nit see above, pp. 191 f.\n\n[569] See above, pp. 192 ff.\n\n[570] For his work see above, p. 192, n. 531. I regret that neither\nWellhausen\u2019s answer to it, nor Kosters\u2019 reply to Wellhausen, was\naccessible to me in preparing this chapter. Nor did I read Mr. Torrey\u2019s\n_resume_ of Wellhausen\u2019s answer, or Wellhausen\u2019s notes to the second\nedition of his _Isr. u. J\u00fcd. Geschichte_, till the chapter was written.\nPrevious to Kosters, the Return under Cyrus had been called in question\nonly by the very arbitrary French scholar M. Vernes in 1889-90.\n\n[571] ii. 6 ff. Eng., 10 ff. Heb.\n\n[572] His chief grounds for this analysis are (1) that in v. 1-5 the\nJews are said to have _begun_ to build the Temple in the second year\nof Darius, while in v. 16 the foundation-stone is said to have been\nlaid under Cyrus; (2) the frequent want of connection throughout the\npassage; (3) an alleged doublet: in v. 17\u2014vi. 1 search is said to have\nbeen made for the edict of Cyrus _in Babylon_, while in vi. 2 the edict\nis said to have been found _in Ecbatana_. But (1) and (3) are capable\nof very obvious explanations, and (2) is far from conclusive.\u2014The\nremainder of the Aramaic text, iv. 8-24, Kosters seeks to prove is by\nthe Chronicler or Compiler himself. As Torrey (_op. cit._, p. 11) has\nshown, this \u201cis as unlikely as possible.\u201d At the most he may have made\nadditions to the Aramaic document.\n\n[573] Ezra v. 16.\n\n[574] Above, pp. 201 f.\n\n[575] Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1. According to Kosters, the statement of\nthe Aramaic document about the rebuilding of the Temple is therefore a\npious invention of a literal fulfilment of prophecy. To this opinion\nCheyne adheres (_Introd. to the Book of Isaiah_, 1895, p. xxxviii),\nand adds the further assumption that the Chronicler, being \u201cshocked at\nthe ascription to Cyrus (for the Jud\u00e6an builders have no credit given\nthem) of what must, he thought, have been at least equally due to the\nzeal of the exiles,\u201d invented his story in the earlier chapters of Ezra\nas to the part the exiles themselves took in the rebuilding. It will\nbe noticed that these assumptions have precisely the value of such.\nThey are merely the imputation of motives, more or less probable to\nthe writers of certain statements, and may therefore be fairly met by\nprobabilities from the other side. But of this more later on.\n\n[576] This is the usual opinion of critics, who yet hold it to be\ngenuine\u2014_e.g._ Ryle.\n\n[577] He seeks to argue that a List of Exiles returned under Cyrus\nin 536 could be of no use for Nehemiah\u2019s purpose to obtain in 445 a\ncensus of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but surely, if in his efforts\nto make a census Nehemiah discovered the existence of such a List, it\nwas natural for him to give it as the basis of his inquiry, or (because\nthe List\u2014see above, p. 203\u2014contains elements from Nehemiah\u2019s own\ntime) to enlarge it and bring it down to date. But Dr. Kosters thinks\nalso that, as Nehemiah would never have broken the connection of his\nmemoirs with such a List, the latter must have been inserted by the\nCompiler, who at this point grew weary of the discursiveness of the\nmemoirs, broke from them, and then\u2014inserted this lengthy List! This is\nsimply incredible\u2014that he should seek to atone for the diffuseness of\nNehemiah\u2019s memoirs by the intrusion of a very long catalogue which had\nno relevance to the point at which he broke them off.\n\n[578] Hag. i. 2, 12; ii. 14.\n\n[579] Hag. i. 12, 14; ii. 2; Zech. viii. 6, 11, 12.\n\n[580] Hag. ii. 4; Zech. vii. 5.\n\n[581] Zech. ii. 16; viii. 13, 15.\n\n[582] It is used in Hag. i. 12, 14, ii. 2, only after the mention of\nthe leaders; see, however, Pusey\u2019s note 9 to Hag. i. 12; while in Zech.\nviii. 6, 11, 18, it might be argued that it was employed in such a way\nas to cover not only Jews who had never left their land, but all Jews\nas well who were left of ancient Israel.\n\n[583] Compare Cheyne, _Introduction to the Book of Isaiah_, 1895, xxxv.\nff., who says that in the main points Kosters\u2019 conclusions \u201cappear\nso inevitable\u201d that he has \u201cconstantly presupposed them\u201d in dealing\nwith chaps. lvi.\u2014lxvi. of Isaiah; and Torrey, _op. cit._, 1896, p. 53:\n\u201cKosters has demonstrated, from the testimony of Haggai and Zechariah,\nthat Zerubbabel and Jeshua were not returned exiles; and furthermore,\nthat the prophets Haggai and Zechariah knew nothing of an important\nreturn of exiles from Babylonia.\u201d Cf. also Wildeboer, _Litteratur des\nA. T._, pp. 291 ff.\n\n[584] iv. 4.\n\n[585] Of course it is always possible that, if there had been no great\nReturn from Babylon under Cyrus, the community at Jerusalem in 520 had\nnot heard of the prophecies of the Second Isaiah.\n\n[586] This argument, it is true, does not fully account for the curious\nfact that Haggai and Zechariah never call the Jewish community at\nJerusalem by a name significant of their return from exile. But in\nreference to this it ought to be noted that even the Aramaic document\nin the Book of Ezra which records the Return under Cyrus does not call\nthe builders of the Temple by any name which implies that they have\ncome up from exile, but styles them simply _the Jews who were in Judah\nand Jerusalem_ (Ezra v. 1), in contrast to the Jews who were in foreign\nlands.\n\n[587] Indeed, why does he ignore the whole Exile itself if no return\nfrom it has taken place?\n\n[588] Zech. ii. 10-17 Heb., 6-13 Eng.\n\n[589] _E.g._ Stade, Kuenen (_op. cit._, p. 216). So, too, Klostermann,\n_Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, M\u00fcnchen, 1896. Wellhausen, in the second\nedition of his _Gesch._, does not admit that the List is one of exiles\nreturned under Cyrus (p. 155, n.).\n\n[590] ix. 4; x. 6, 7.\n\n[591] _Op. cit._, p. 216, where he also quotes the testimony of the\nBook of Daniel (ix. 25).\n\n[592] Since writing the above I have seen the relevant notes to\nthe second edition of Wellhausen\u2019s _Gesch._, pp. 155 and 160. \u201cThe\nrefounding of Jerusalem and the Temple cannot have started from the\nJews left behind in Palestine.\u201d \u201cThe remnant left in the land would\nhave restored the old popular cultus of the high places. Instead of\nthat we find even before Ezra the legitimate cultus and the hierocracy\nin Jerusalem: in the Temple-service proper Ezra discovers nothing to\nreform. Without the leaven of the G\u00f4lah the Judaism of Palestine is in\nits origin incomprehensible.\u201d\n\n[593] The inscription of Cyrus is sometimes quoted to this effect:\ncf. P. Hay Hunter, _op. cit._, I. 35. But it would seem that the\nstatement of Cyrus is limited to the restoration of Assyrian idols and\ntheir worshippers to Assur and Akkad. Still, what he did in this case\nfurnishes a strong argument for the probability of his having done the\nsame in the case of the Jews.\n\n[594] See above, p. 206, and especially n. 575.\n\n[595] Even Cheyne, after accepting Kosters\u2019 conclusions as in the main\npoints inevitable (_op. cit._, p. xxxv), considers (p. xxxviii) that\n\u201cthe earnestness of Haggai and Zechariah (who cannot have stood alone)\nimplies the existence of a higher religious element at Jerusalem long\nbefore 432 B.C. Whence came this higher element but from its natural\nhome among the more cultured Jews in Babylonia?\u201d\n\n[596] Ezra iii. 8-13.\n\n[597] Schrader, \u201cUeber die Dauer des Tempelbaues,\u201d in _Stud. u. Krit._,\n1879, 460 ff.; Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, II. 115 ff.; Kuenen,\n_op. cit._, p. 222; Kosters, _op. cit._, Chap. I., \u00a7 1. To this\nopinion others have adhered: K\u00f6nig (_Einleit. in das A. T._), Ryssel\n(_op. cit._) and Marti (2nd edition of Kayser\u2019s _Theol. des A. T._,\np. 200). Schrader (p. 563) argues that Ezra iii. 8-13 was not founded\non a historical document, but is an imitation of Neh. vii. 73\u2014viii.;\nand Stade that the Aramaic document in Ezra which ascribes the laying\nof the foundation-stone to Sheshbazzar, the legate of Cyrus, was not\nearlier than 430.\n\n[598] Ryle, _op. cit._, p. xxx.\n\n[599] Stade, Wellhausen, etc. See below, Chap. XVIII. on Hag. ii. 18.\n\n[600] See above, pp. 210 f.\n\n[601] Ezra iv. 24, v. 1.\n\n[602] Ezra v. 6.\n\n[603] _Ib._ 13.\n\n[604] _Ib._ 16.\n\n[605] _Gesch._, II., p. 123.\n\n[606] See above, p. 213.\n\n[607] Ezra iv. 1-4. \u201cThat the relation of Ezra iv. 1-4 is historical\nseems to be established against objections which have been taken to it\nby the reference to Esarhaddon, which A. v. Gutschmid has vindicated\nby an ingenious historical combination with the aid of the Assyrian\nmonuments (_Neue Beitr\u00e4ge_, p. 145).\u201d\u2014Robertson Smith, art. \u201cHaggai,\u201d\n_Encyc. Brit._\n\n[608] Cf. _Hist. Geog._, pp. 317 ff.\n\n[609] Ezra iv.\n\n[610] There was a sharp skirmish at Rabbath-Ammon the night we spent\nthere, and at least one Circassian was shot.\n\n[611] \u201cSheshbazzar presumably having taken up his task with the\nusual conscientiousness of an Oriental governor, that is having done\nnothing though the work was nominally in hand all along (Ezra v.\n16).\u201d\u2014Robertson Smith, art. \u201cHaggai,\u201d _Encyc. Brit._\n\n[612] See below, Chap. XVIII.\n\n[613] Herod., I. 130, III. 127.\n\n[614] 1 Chron. iii. 19 makes him a son of Pedaiah, brother of\nShe\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el, son of Jehoiachin, the king who was carried away by\nNebuchadrezzar in 597 and remained captive till 561, when King\nEvil-Merodach set him in honour. It has been supposed that, She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el\ndying childless, Pedaiah by levirate marriage with his widow became\nfather of Zerubbabel.\n\n\n\n\n _HAGGAI_\n\n _Go up into the mountain, and fetch wood, and build the House._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVII\n\n _THE BOOK OF HAGGAI_\n\n\nThe Book of Haggai contains thirty-eight verses, which have been\ndivided between two chapters.[615] The text is, for the prophets,\na comparatively sound one. The Greek version affords a number of\ncorrections, but has also the usual amount of misunderstandings,\nand, as in the case of other prophets, a few additions to the Hebrew\ntext.[616] These and the variations in the other ancient versions will\nbe noted in the translation below.[617]\n\nThe book consists of four sections, each recounting a message from\nJehovah to the Jews in Jerusalem in 520 B.C., _the second year of\nDarius_ (Hystaspis), _by the hand of the prophet Haggai_.\n\nThe _first_, chap. i., dated the first day of the sixth month, during\nour September, reproves the Jews for building their own _cieled\nhouses_, while they say that _the time for building Jehovah\u2019s house has\nnot yet come_; affirms that this is the reason of their poverty and of\na great drought which has afflicted them. A piece of narrative is added\nrecounting how Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the heads of the community, were\nstirred by this word to lead the people to begin work on the Temple, on\nthe twenty-fourth day of the same month.\n\nThe _second_ section, chap. ii. 1-9, contains a message, dated the\ntwenty-first day of the seventh month, during our October, in which the\nbuilders are encouraged for their work. Jehovah is about to shake all\nnations, these shall contribute of their wealth, and the latter glory\nof the Temple be greater than the former.\n\nThe _third_ section, chap. ii. 10-19, contains a word of Jehovah which\ncame to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, during our\nDecember. It is in the form of a parable based on certain ceremonial\nlaws, according to which the touch of a holy thing does not sanctify so\nmuch as the touch of an unholy pollutes. Thus is the people polluted,\nand thus every work of their hands. Their sacrifices avail nought, and\nadversity has persisted: small increase of fruits, blasting, mildew and\nhail. But from this day God will bless.\n\nThe _fourth_ section, chap. ii. 20-23, is a second word from the\nLord to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. It is\nfor Zerubbabel, and declares that God will overthrow the thrones of\nkingdoms and destroy the forces of many of the Gentiles by war. In that\nday Zerubbabel, the Lord\u2019s elect servant, shall be as a signet to the\nLord.\n\nThe authenticity of all these four sections was doubted by no one,[618]\ntill ten years ago W. B\u00f6hme, besides pointing out some useless\nrepetitions of single words and phrases, cast suspicion on chap. i. 13,\nand questioned the whole of the _fourth_ section, chap. ii. 20-23.[619]\nWith regard to chap. i. 13, it is indeed curious that Haggai should be\ndescribed as _the messenger of Jehovah_; while the message itself, _I\nam with you_, seems superfluous here, and if the verse be omitted, ver.\n14 runs on naturally to ver. 12.[620] B\u00f6hme\u2019s reasons for disputing the\nauthenticity of chap. ii. 20-23 are much less sufficient. He thinks he\nsees the hand of an editor in the phrase _for a second time_ in ver.\n20; notes the omission of the title \u201cprophet\u201d[621] after Haggai\u2019s name,\nand the difference of the formula _the word came to Haggai_ from that\nemployed in the previous sections, _by the hand of Haggai_, and the\nrepetition of ver. 6_b_ in ver. 21; and otherwise concludes that the\nsection is an insertion from a later hand. But the formula _the word\ncame to Haggai_ occurs also in ii. 10:[622] the other points are\ntrivial, and while it was most natural for Haggai the contemporary of\nZerubbabel to entertain of the latter such hopes as the passage\nexpresses, it is inconceivable that a later writer, who knew how they\nhad not been fulfilled in Zerubbabel, should have invented them.[623]\n\nRecently M. Tony Andr\u00e9e, _privat-docent_ in the University of Geneva,\nhas issued a large work on Haggai,[624] in which he has sought to prove\nthat the _third_ section of the book, chap. ii. (10) 11-19, is from the\nhand of another writer than the rest. He admits[625] that in neither\nform, nor style, nor language is there anything to prove this\ndistinction, and that the ideas of all the sections suit perfectly the\ncondition of the Jews in the time soon after the Return. But he\nconsiders that chap. ii. (10) 11-19 interrupts the connection between\nthe sections upon either side of it; that the author is a legalist or\ncasuist, while the author of the other sections is a man whose only\necclesiastical interest is the rebuilding of the Temple; that there are\nobvious contradictions between chap. ii. (10) 11-19 and the rest of the\nbook; and that there is a difference of vocabulary. Let us consider\neach of these reasons.\n\nThe first, that chap. ii. (10) 11-19 interrupts the connection between\nthe sections on either side of it, is true only in so far as it has a\ndifferent subject from that which the latter have more or less in\ncommon. But the second of the latter, chap. ii. 20-23, treats only of a\ncorollary of the first, chap. ii. 1-9, and that corollary may well have\nformed the subject of a separate oracle. Besides, as we shall see,\nchap. ii. 10-19 is a natural development of chap. i.[626] The\ncontradictions alleged by M. Andr\u00e9e are two. He points out that while\nchap. i. speaks only of a _drought_,[627] chap. ii. (10) 11-19\nmentions[628] as the plagues on the crops shidd\u0101ph\u00f4n and y\u0113r\u0101k\u00f4n,\ngenerally rendered _blasting_ and _mildew_ in our English Bible, and\nb\u0101r\u0101d, or _hail_; and these he reckons to be plagues due not to drought\nbut to excessive moisture. But shidd\u0101ph\u00f4n and y\u0113r\u0101k\u00f4n, which are always\nconnected in the Old Testament and are words of doubtful meaning, are\nnot referred to damp in any of the passages in which they occur, but,\non the contrary, appear to be the consequences of drought.[629] The\nother contradiction alleged refers to the ambiguous verse ii. 18, on\nwhich we have already seen it difficult to base any conclusion, and\nwhich will be treated when we come to it in the course of\ntranslation.[630] Finally, the differences in language which M. Andr\u00e9e\ncites are largely imaginary, and it is hard to understand how a\nresponsible critic has come to cite, far more to emphasise them, as he\nhas done. We may relegate the discussion of them to a note,[631] and\nneed here only remark that there is among them but one of any\nsignificance: while the rest of the book calls the Temple _the House_\nor _the House of Jehovah_ (or _of Jehovah of Hosts_), chap. ii. (10)\n11-19 styles it _palace_, or temple, of Jehovah.[632] On such a\ndifference between two comparatively brief passages it would be\nunreasonable to decide for a distinction of authorship.\n\nThere is, therefore, no reason to disagree with the consensus of all\nother critics in the integrity of the Book of Haggai. The four sections\nare either from himself or from a contemporary of his. They probably\nrepresent,[633] not the full addresses given by him on the occasions\nstated, but abstracts or summaries of these. \u201cIt is never an easy task\nto persuade a whole population to make pecuniary sacrifices, or to\npostpone private to public interests; and the probability is, that in\nthese brief remains of the prophet Haggai we have but one or two\nspecimens of a ceaseless diligence and persistent determination,\nwhich upheld and animated the whole people till the work was\naccomplished.\u201d[634] At the same time it must be noticed that the style\nof the book is not wholly of the bare, jejune prose which it is\nsometimes described to be. The passages of Haggai\u2019s own exhortation are\nin the well-known parallel rhythm of prophetic discourse: see\nespecially chap. i., ver. 6.\n\nThe only other matter of Introduction to the prophet Haggai is his\nname. The precise form[635] is not elsewhere found in the Old\nTestament; but one of the clans of the tribe of Gad is called\nHaggi,[636] and the letters H G I occur as the consonants of a name on\na Ph\u0153nician inscription.[637] Some[638] have taken Haggai to be a\ncontraction of Haggiyah, the name of a Levitical family,[639] but\nalthough the final _yod_ of some proper names stands for Jehovah, we\ncannot certainly conclude that it is so in this case. Others[640] see\nin Haggai a probable contraction for Hagariah,[641] as Zaccai, the\noriginal of Zacch\u00e6us, is a contraction of Zechariah.[642] A more\ngeneral opinion[643] takes the termination as adjectival,[644] and the\nroot to be \u201chag,\u201d _feast_ or _festival_.[645] In that case Haggai would\nmean _festal_, and it has been supposed that the name would be given to\nhim from his birth on the day of some feast. It is impossible to decide\nwith certainty among these alternatives. M. Andr\u00e9e,[646] who accepts\nthe meaning _festal_, ventures the hypothesis that, like \u201cMalachi,\u201d\nHaggai is a symbolic title given by a later hand to the anonymous\nwriter of the book, because of the coincidence of his various\nprophecies with solemn festivals.[647] But the name is too often and\ntoo naturally introduced into the book to present any analogy to that\nof \u201cMalachi\u201d; and the hypothesis may be dismissed as improbable and\nunnatural.\n\nNothing more is known of Haggai than his name and the facts given in\nhis book. But as with the other prophets whom we have treated, so with\nthis one, Jewish and Christian legends have been very busy. Other\nfunctions have been ascribed to him; a sketch of his biography has been\ninvented. According to the Rabbis he was one of the men of the Great\nSynagogue, and with Zechariah and \u201cMalachi\u201d transmitted to that\nmythical body the tradition of the older prophets.[648] He was the\nauthor of several ceremonial regulations, and with Zechariah and\n\u201cMalachi\u201d introduced into the alphabet the terminal forms of the five\nelongated letters.[649] The Christian Fathers narrate that he was of\nthe tribe of Levi,[650] that with Zechariah he prophesied in exile of\nthe Return,[651] and was still young when he arrived in Jerusalem,[652]\nwhere he died and was buried. A strange legend, founded on the doubtful\nverse which styles him _the messenger of Jehovah_, gave out that\nHaggai, as well as for similar reasons \u201cMalachi\u201d and John the Baptist,\nwere not men, but angels in human shape.[653] With Zechariah Haggai\nappears on the titles of Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii. in the\nSeptuagint; cxi., cxlv., cxlvi. in the Vulgate; and cxxv., cxxvi. and\ncxlv.-cxlviii. in the Peshitto.[654] \u201cIn the Temple at Jerusalem he was\nthe first who chanted the Hallelujah, ... wherefore we say: Hallelujah,\nwhich is the hymn of Haggai and Zechariah.\u201d[655] All these testimonies\nare, of course, devoid of value.\n\nFinally, the modern inference from chap. ii. 3, that Haggai in his\nyouth had seen the former Temple, had gone into exile, and was now\nreturned a very old man,[656] may be probable, but is not certain. We\nare quite ignorant of his age at the time the word of Jehovah came to\nhim.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[615] In the English Bible the division corresponds to that of the\nHebrew, which gives fifteen verses to chap. i. The LXX. takes the\nfifteenth verse along with ver. 1 of chap. ii.\n\n[616] ii. 9, 14: see on these passages, pp. 243, n. 685, 246, n. 700.\n\n[617] Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets,\nalready cited, M. Tony Andr\u00e9e has published _\u00c9tat Critique du Texte\nd\u2019Agg\u00e9e: Quatre Tableaux Comparatifs_ (Paris, 1893), which is also\nincluded in his general introduction and commentary on the prophet,\nquoted below.\n\n[618] Robertson Smith (_Encyc. Brit._, art. \u201cHaggai,\u201d 1880) does\nnot even mention authenticity. \u201cWithout doubt from Haggai himself\u201d\n(Kuenen). \u201cThe Book of Haggai is without doubt to be dated, according\nto its whole extant contents, from the prophet Haggai, whose work fell\nin the year 520\u201d (K\u00f6nig). So Driver, Kirkpatrick, Cornill, etc.\n\n[619] _Z.A.T.W._, 1887, 215 f.\n\n[620] So also Wellhausen.\n\n[621] Which occurs only in the LXX.\n\n[622] See note on that verse, n. 694\n\n[623] Cf. Wildeboer, _Litter. des A. T._, 294.\n\n[624] _Le Proph\u00e8te Agg\u00e9e, Introduction Critique et Commentaire._ Paris,\nFischbacher, 1893.\n\n[625] Page 151.\n\n[626] Below, p. 249.\n\n[627] i. 10, 11.\n\n[628] ii. 17.\n\n[629] They follow drought in Amos iv. 9; and in the other passages\nwhere they occur\u2014Deut. xxviii. 22; 1 Kings viii. 37; 2 Chron. vi.\n28\u2014they are mentioned in a list of possible plagues after famine, or\npestilence, or fevers, all of which, with the doubtful exception of\nfevers, followed drought.\n\n[630] Above, p. 216; below, p. 248, n. 708.\n\n[631] Some of M. Andr\u00e9e\u2019s alleged differences need not be discussed at\nall, _e.g._ that between \u05de\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9 and \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9. But here are the others. He\nasserts that while chap. i. calls _oil and wine_ \u201cyi\u1e63har and t\u00eer\u00f4sh,\u201d\nchap. ii. (10) 11-19 calls them \u201cyayin and shemen.\u201d But he overlooks\nthe fact that the former pair of names, meaning the newly pressed oil\nand wine, suit their connection, in which the fruits of the earth are\nbeing catalogued, i. 11, while the latter pair, meaning the finished\nwine and oil, equally suit their connection, in which articles of food\nare being catalogued, ii. 12. Equally futile is the distinction drawn\nbetween i. 9, which speaks of bringing the crops _to the house_, or as\nwe should say _home_, and ii. 19, which speaks of seed being _in the\nbarn_. Again, what is to be said of a critic who adduces in evidence of\ndistinction of authorship the fact that i. 6 employs the verb labhash,\n_to clothe_, while ii. 12 uses beged for _garment_, and who actually\nputs in brackets the root bagad, as if it anywhere in the Old Testament\nmeant _to clothe_! Again, Andr\u00e9e remarks that while ii. (10) 11-19 does\nnot employ the epithet _Jehovah of Hosts_, but only _Jehovah_, the rest\nof the book frequently uses the former; but he omits to observe that\nthe rest of the book, besides using _Jehovah of Hosts_, often uses\nthe name Jehovah alone [the phrase in ii. (10) 11-19 is \u05e0\u05d0\u05dd \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, and\noccurs twice ii. 14, 17; but the rest of the book has also \u05e0\u05d0\u05dd \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4,\nii. 4; and besides \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, i. 1, ii. 1, ii. 20; \u05d0\u05de\u05e8 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, i. 8; and\n\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd and \u05de\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, i. 12]. Again, Andr\u00e9e observes that while the\nrest of the book designates Israel always by \u05e2\u05dd and the heathen by \u05d2\u05d5\u05d9,\nchap. ii. (10) 11-19, in ver. 14, uses both terms of Israel. Yet in\nthis latter case \u05d2\u05d5\u05d9 is used only in parallel to \u05e2\u05dd, as frequently in\nother parts of the Old Testament. Again, that while in the rest of the\nbook Haggai is called the prophet (the doubtful i. 13 may be omitted),\nhe is simply named in ii. (10) 11-19, means nothing, for the name here\noccurs only in introducing his contribution to a conversation, in\nrecording which it was natural to omit titles. Similarly insignificant\nis the fact that while the rest of the book mentions only _the High\nPriest_, chap. ii. (10) 11-19 talks only of _the priests_: because here\nagain each is suitable to the connection.\u2014Two or three of Andr\u00e9e\u2019s\nalleged grounds (such as that from the names for wine and oil and that\nfrom labhash and beged) are enough to discredit his whole case.\n\n[632] ii. 15, 18.\n\n[633] In this opinion, stated first by Eichhorn, most critics agree.\n\n[634] Marcus Dods, _Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi_, 1879, in Handbooks\nfor Bible Classes: Edin., T. & T. Clark.\n\n[635]\u200e \u05d7\u05b7\u05d2\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9 Greek \u1f08\u03b3\u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n[636]\u200e \u05d7\u05b7\u05d2\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9, Gen. xlvi. 16, Num. xxvi. 15; Greek \u1f09\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9, \u1f09\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2. The\nfeminine \u05d7\u05b7\u05d2\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05ea, Haggith, was the name of one of David\u2019s wives: 2 Sam.\niii. 4.\n\n[637] No. 67 of the Ph\u0153nician inscriptions in _C. I. S._\n\n[638] Hiller, _Onom. Sacrum_, T\u00fcb., 1706 (quoted by Andr\u00e9e), and Pusey.\n\n[639]\u200e \u05d7\u05b7\u05d2\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4, see 1 Chron. vi. 15; Greek \u1f09\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1, Lu. \u1f08\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n[640] K\u00f6hler, _Nachexil. Proph._, I. 2; Wellhausen in fourth edition of\nBleek\u2019s _Einleitung_; Robertson Smith, _Encyc. Brit._, art. \u201cHaggai.\u201d\n\n[641]\u200e \u05d7\u05d2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d4 = _Jehovah hath girded_.\n\n[642] Derenbourg, _Hist. de la Palestine_, pp. 95, 150.\n\n[643] Jerome, Gesenius, and most moderns.\n\n[644] As in the names \u05e7\u05b7\u05dc\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9 ,\u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05dc\u05d5\u05bc\u05d1\u05b7\u05d9 ,\u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05e8\u05b0\u05d6\u05b4\u05dc\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9, etc.\n\n[645] The radical double _g_ of which appears in composition.\n\n[646] _Op. cit._, p. 8.\n\n[647] i. 1, the new moon; ii. 1, the seventh day of the Feast of\nTabernacles; ii. 18, the foundation of the Temple (?).\n\n[648] Baba-bathra, 15_a_, etc.\n\n[649] Megilla, 2_b_.\n\n[650] Hesychius: see above, p. 80, n.\n\n[651] Augustine, _Enarratio in Psalm cxlvii._\n\n[652] Pseud-Epiphanius, _De Vitis Prophetarum_.\n\n[653] Jerome on Hag. i. 13.\n\n[654] Eusebius did not find these titles in the Hexaplar Septuagint.\nSee Field\u2019s _Hexaplar_ on Psalm cxlv. 1. The titles are of course\nwholly without authority.\n\n[655] Pseud-Epiphanius, as above.\n\n[656] So Ewald, Wildeboer (p. 295) and others.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVIII\n\n _HAGGAI AND THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE_\n\n HAGGAI i., ii.\n\n\nWe have seen that the most probable solution of the problems presented\nto us by the inadequate and confused records of the time is that a\nconsiderable number of Jewish exiles returned from Jerusalem to Babylon\nabout 537, upon the permission of Cyrus, and that the Satrap whom he\nsent with them not only allowed them to raise the altar on its ancient\nsite, but himself laid for them the foundation-stone of the Temple.[657]\n\nWe have seen, too, why this attempt led to nothing, and we have\nfollowed the Samaritan obstructions, the failure of the Persian\npatronage, the drought and bad harvests, and all the disillusion of the\nfifteen years which succeeded the Return.[658] The hostility of the\nSamaritans was entirely due to the refusal of the Jews to give them a\nshare in the construction of the Temple, and its virulence, probably\nshown by preventing the Jews from procuring timber, seems to have\nceased when the Temple works were stopped. At least we find no mention\nof it in our prophets; and the Jews are furnished with enough of timber\nto panel and ciel their own houses.[659] But the Jews must have feared\na renewal of Samaritan attacks if they resumed work on the Temple, and\nfor the rest they were too sodden with adversity, and too weighted with\nthe care of their own sustenance, to spring at higher interests. What\nimmediately precedes our prophets is a miserable story of barren\nseasons and little income, money leaking fast away, and every man\u2019s\nsordid heart engrossed with his own household. Little wonder that\ncritics have been led to deny the great Return of sixteen years back,\nwith its grand ambitions for the Temple and glorious future of Israel.\nBut the like collapse has often been experienced in history when bands\nof religious men, going forth, as they thought, to freedom and the\nimmediate erection of a holy commonwealth, have found their unity\nwrecked and their enthusiasm dissipated by a few inclement seasons on a\nbarren and a hostile shore. Nature and their barbarous fellow-men have\nfrustrated what God had promised. Themselves, accustomed from a high\nstage of civilisation to plan still higher social structures, are\nsuddenly reduced to the primitive necessities of tillage and defence\nagainst a savage foe. Statesmen, poets and idealists of sorts have to\nhoe the ground, quarry stones and stay up of nights to watch as\nsentinels. Destitute of the comforts and resources with which they have\ngrown up, they live in constant battle with their bare and\nunsympathetic environs. It is a familiar tale in history, and we read\nit with ease in the case of Israel. The Jews enjoyed this advantage,\nthat they came not to a strange land, but to one crowded with inspiring\nmemories, and they had behind them the most glorious impetus of\nprophecy which ever sent a people forward to the future. Yet the very\nardours of this hurried them past a due appreciation of the\ndifficulties they would have to encounter, and when they found\nthemselves on the stony soil of Judah, which they had been idealising\nfor fifty years, and were further afflicted by barren seasons, their\nhearts must have suffered an even more bitter disillusion than has so\nfrequently fallen to the lot of religious emigrants to an absolutely\nnew coast.\n\n\n 1. THE CALL TO BUILD (Chap. i.).\n\nIt was to this situation, upon an autumn day, when the colonists felt\nanother year of beggarly effort behind them and their wretched harvest\nhad been brought home, that the prophet Haggai addressed himself.\nWith rare sense he confined his efforts to the practical needs of\nthe moment. The sneers of modern writers have not been spared upon a\nstyle that is crabbed and jejune, and they have esteemed this to be\na collapse of the prophetic spirit, in which Haggai ignored all the\nachievements of prophecy and interpreted the word of God as only a call\nto hew wood and lay stone upon stone. But the man felt what the moment\nneeded, and that is the supreme mark of the prophet. Set a prophet\nthere, and what else could a prophet have done? It would have been\nfutile to rewaken those most splendid voices of the past, which had in\npart been the reason of the people\u2019s disappointment, and equally futile\nto interpret the mission of the great world powers towards God\u2019s\npeople. What God\u2019s people themselves could do for themselves\u2014that was\nwhat needed telling at the moment; and if Haggai told it with a meagre\nand starved style, this also was in harmony with the occasion. One does\nnot expect it otherwise when hungry men speak to each other of their\nduty.\n\nNor does Haggai deserve blame that he interpreted the duty as the\nmaterial building of the Temple. This was no mere ecclesiastical\nfunction. Without the Temple the continuity of Israel\u2019s religion could\nnot be maintained. An independent state, with the full courses of civic\nlife, was then impossible. The ethical spirit, the regard for each\nother and God, could prevail over their material interests in no other\nway than by common devotion to the worship of the God of their fathers.\nIn urging them to build the Temple from their own unaided resources, in\nabstaining from all hopes of imperial patronage, in making the business\none, not of sentiment nor of comfortable assurance derived from the\npast promises of God, but of plain and hard duty\u2014Haggai illustrated at\nonce the sanity and the spiritual essence of prophecy in Israel.\n\nProfessor Robertson Smith has contrasted the central importance which\nHaggai attached to the Temple with the attitude of Isaiah and Jeremiah,\nto whom \u201cthe religion of Israel and the holiness of Jerusalem have\nlittle to do with the edifice of the Temple. The city is holy because\nit is the seat of Jehovah\u2019s sovereignty on earth, exerted in His\ndealings with and for the state of Judah and the kingdom of\nDavid.\u201d[660] At the same time it ought to be pointed out that even to\nIsaiah the Temple was the dwelling-place of Jehovah, and if it had been\nlying in ruins at his feet, as it was at Haggai\u2019s, there is little\ndoubt he would have been as earnest as Haggai in urging its\nreconstruction. Nor did the Second Isaiah, who has as lofty an idea of\nthe spiritual destiny of the people as any other prophet, lay less\nemphasis upon the cardinal importance of the Temple to their life, and\nupon the certainty of its future glory.\n\n_In the second year of Darius[661] the king, in the sixth month and\nthe first day of the month_\u2014that is, on the feast of the new moon\u2014_the\nword of Jehovah came by[662] Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, son\nof She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el,[663] Satrap of Judah, and to Jehoshua\u2018, son of\nJeho\u1e63ada\u1e33,[664] the high priest_\u2014the civil and religious heads of the\ncommunity\u2014_as follows_[665]:\u2014\n\n_Thus hath Jehovah of Hosts spoken, saying: This people have said, Not\nyet[666] is come the time for the building of Jehovah\u2019s House.\nTherefore Jehovah\u2019s word is come by Haggai the prophet, saying: Is it a\ntime for you\u2014you[667]\u2014to be dwelling in houses cieled with planks,[668]\nwhile this House is waste? And now thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Lay to\nheart how things have gone with you.[669] Ye sowed much but had little\nincome, ate and were not satisfied, drank and were not full, put on\nclothing and there was no warmth, while he that earned wages has earned\nthem into a bag with holes._\n\n_Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts:[670] Go up into the mountain_\u2014the\nhill-country of Judah\u2014_and bring in timber, and build the House, that\nI may take pleasure in it, and show My glory, saith Jehovah. Ye looked\nfor much and it has turned out little,[671] and what ye brought home I\npuffed at. On account of what?\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts\u2014on account\nof My House which is waste, while ye are hurrying every man after his\nown house. Therefore[672] hath heaven shut off the dew,[673] and earth\nshut off her increase. And I have called drought upon the earth, both\nupon the mountains,[674] and upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon\nthe oil, and upon what the ground brings forth, and upon man, and upon\nbeast, and upon all the labour of the hands._\n\nFor ourselves, Haggai\u2019s appeal to the barren seasons and poverty of the\npeople as proof of God\u2019s anger with their selfishness must raise\nquestions. But we have already seen, not only that natural calamities\nwere by the ancient world interpreted as the penal instruments of the\nDeity, but that all through history they have had a wonderful influence\non the spirits of men, forcing them to search their own hearts and to\nbelieve that Providence is conducted for other ends than those of our\nphysical prosperity. \u201cHave not those who have believed as Amos believed\never been the strong spirits of our race, making the very disasters\nwhich crushed them to the earth the tokens that God has great views\nabout them?\u201d[675] Haggai, therefore, takes no sordid view of Providence\nwhen he interprets the seasons, from which his countrymen had suffered,\nas God\u2019s anger upon their selfishness and delay in building His House.\n\nThe straight appeal to the conscience of the Jews had an immediate\neffect. Within three weeks they began work on the Temple.\n\n_And Zerubbabel, son of She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el, and Jehoshua\u2018, son of Jeho\u1e63ada\u1e33,\nthe high priest, and all the rest of the people, hearkened to the\nvoice of Jehovah their God, and to the words of Haggai the prophet, as\nJehovah their God had sent him; and the people feared before the face\nof Jehovah. [And Haggai, the messenger of Jehovah, in Jehovah\u2019s mission\nto the people, spake, saying, I am with you\u2014oracle of Jehovah.][676]\nAnd Jehovah stirred the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el,\nSatrap of Judah, and the spirit of Jehoshua\u2018, son of Jeho\u1e63ada\u1e33, the\nhigh priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people; and they\nwent and did work in the House of Jehovah of Hosts, their God, on the\ntwenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the\nking._[677]\n\nNote how the narrative emphasises that the new energy was, as it could\nnot but be from Haggai\u2019s unflattering words, a purely spiritual result.\nIt was the _spirit_ of Zerubbabel, and the _spirit_ of Jehoshua, and\nthe _spirit_ of all the rest of the people, which was stirred\u2014their\nconscience and radical force of character. Not in vain had the people\nsuffered their great disillusion under Cyrus, if now their history was\nto start again from sources so inward and so pure.\n\n\n 2. COURAGE, ZERUBBABEL! COURAGE, JEHOSHUA AND\n ALL THE PEOPLE! (Chap. ii. 1-9).\n\nThe second occasion on which Haggai spoke to the people was another\nfeast the same autumn, the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles,[678]\nthe twenty-first of the seventh month. For nearly four weeks the work\non the Temple had proceeded. Some progress must have been made, for\ncomparisons became possible between the old Temple and the state of\nthis one. Probably the outline and size of the building were visible.\nIn any case it was enough to discourage the builders with their efforts\nand the means at their disposal. Haggai\u2019s new word is a very simple one\nof encouragement. The people\u2019s conscience had been stirred by his\nfirst; they needed now some hope. Consequently he appeals to what he\nhad ignored before, the political possibilities which the present state\nof the world afforded\u2014always a source of prophetic promise. But again\nhe makes his former call upon their own courage and resources. The\nHebrew text contains a reference to the Exodus which would be\nappropriate to a discourse delivered during the Feast of Tabernacles,\nbut it is not found in the Septuagint, and is so impossible to construe\nthat it has been justly suspected as a gloss, inserted by some later\nhand, only because the passage had to do with the Feast of Tabernacles.\n\n_In the seventh_ month, _on the twenty-first day of the month, the word\nof Jehovah came by[679] Haggai the prophet, saying_:\u2014\n\n_Speak now to Zerubbabel, son of She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el, Satrap of Judah, and to\nJehoshua\u2018, son of Jeho\u1e63ada\u1e33, the high priest, and to the rest of the\npeople, saying: Who among you is left that saw this House in its former\nglory, and how do ye see it now? Is it not as nothing in your\neyes?[680] And now courage,[681] O Zerubbabel\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014and\ncourage, Jehoshua\u2018, son of Jeho\u1e63ada\u1e33, O high priest;[682] and courage,\nall people of the land!\u2014oracle of Jehovah; and get to work, for I am\nwith you\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts[683]\u2014and My Spirit is standing in\nyour midst. Fear not! For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: It is but a\nlittle while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth and the sea\nand the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the costly\nthings[684] of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this House\nwith glory, saith Jehovah of Hosts. Mine is the silver and Mine the\ngold\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts. Greater shall the latter glory of this\nHouse be than the former, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and in this place\nwill I give peace[685]\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts._\n\nFrom the earliest times this passage, by the majority of the Christian\nChurch, has been interpreted of the coming of Christ. The Vulgate\nrenders ver. 7_b_, _Et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus_, and so a\nlarge number of the Latin Fathers, who are followed by Luther, _Der\nTrost aller Heiden_, and by our own Authorised Version, _And the Desire\nof all nations shall come_. This was not contrary to Jewish tradition,\nfor Rabbi Akiba had defined the clause of the Messiah, and Jerome\nreceived the interpretation from his Jewish instructors. In itself the\nnoun, as pointed in the Massoretic text, means _longing_ or _object of\nlonging_.[686] But the verb which goes with it is in the plural, and by\na change of points the noun itself may be read as a plural.[687] That\nthis was the original reading is made extremely probable by the fact\nthat it lay before the translators of the Septuagint, who render: _the\npicked_, or _chosen, things of the nations_.[688] So the old Italic\nversion: _Et venient omnia electa gentium_.[689] Moreover this meaning\nsuits the context, as the other does not. The next verse mentions\nsilver and gold. \u201cWe may understand what he says,\u201d writes Calvin, \u201cof\nChrist; we indeed know that Christ was the expectation of the whole\nworld; ... but as it immediately follows, _Mine is the silver and Mine\nis the gold_, the more simple meaning is that which I first stated:\nthat the nations would come, bringing with them all their riches, that\nthey might offer themselves and all their possessions a sacrifice to\nGod.\u201d[690]\n\n\n 3. THE POWER OF THE UNCLEAN (Chap. ii. 10-19).\n\nHaggai\u2019s third address to the people is based on a deliverance which he\nseeks from the priests. The Book of Deuteronomy had provided that, in\nall difficult cases not settled by its own code, the people shall seek\na _deliverance_ or _Torah_ from the priests, _and shall observe to do\naccording to the deliverance which the priests deliver to thee_.[691]\nBoth noun and verb, which may be thus literally translated, are also\nused for the completed and canonical Law in Israel, and they signify\nthat in the time of the composition of the Book of Deuteronomy that Law\nwas still regarded as in process of growth. So it is also in the time\nof Haggai: he does not consult a code of laws, nor asks the priests\nwhat the canon says, as, for instance, our Lord does with the question,\n_how readest thou_? But he begs them to give him _a_ Torah or\n_deliverance_,[692] based of course upon existing custom, but not yet\ncommitted to writing.[693] For the history of the Law in Israel this\nis, therefore, a passage of great interest.\n\n_On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius,\nthe word of Jehovah came to[694] Haggai the prophet, saying: Thus saith\nJehovah of Hosts, Ask, I pray, of the priests a deliverance,[695]\nsaying:\u2014_\n\n_If a man be carrying flesh that is holy in the skirt of his robe, and\nwith his skirt touch bread or pottage or wine or oil or any food, shall\n_the latter_ become holy? And the priests gave answer and said, No! And\nHaggai said, If one unclean by a corpse[696] touch any of these, shall\n_the latter_ become unclean? And the priests gave answer and said, It\nshall._ That is to say, holiness which passed from the source to an\nobject immediately in touch with the latter did not spread further; but\npollution infected not only the person who came into contact with it,\nbut whatever he touched.[697] \u201cThe flesh of the sacrifice hallowed\nwhatever it should touch, but not further;[698] but the human being who\nwas defiled by touching a dead body, defiled all he might touch.\u201d[699]\n_And Haggai answered and said: So is this people, and so is this nation\nbefore Me\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014and so is all the work of their hands, and\nwhat they offer there_\u2014at the altar erected on its old site\u2014_is\nunclean_.[700] That is to say, while the Jews had expected their\nrestored ritual to make them holy to the Lord, this had not been\neffective, while, on the contrary, their contact with sources of\npollution had thoroughly polluted both themselves and their labour and\ntheir sacrifices. What these sources of pollution are is not explicitly\nstated, but Haggai, from his other messages, can only mean, either the\npeople\u2019s want of energy in building the Temple, or the unbuilt Temple\nitself. Andr\u00e9e goes so far as to compare the latter with the corpse,\nwhose touch, according to the priests, spreads infection through more\nthan one degree. In any case Haggai means to illustrate and enforce the\nbuilding of the Temple without delay; and meantime he takes one\ninstance of the effect he has already spoken of, _the work of their\nhands_, and shows how it has been spoilt by their neglect and delay.\n_And now, I pray, set your hearts backward from to-day,[701] before\nstone was laid upon stone in the Temple of Jehovah: ...[702] when one\ncame to a heap of grain of twenty measures, and it had become ten, or\nwent to the winevat to draw fifty measures,[703] and it had become\ntwenty. I smote you with blasting and with withering,[704] and with\nhail all the work of your hands, and ...[705]\u2014oracle of Jehovah. Lay\nnow your hearts _on the time_ before to-day[706] (the twenty-fourth day\nof the ninth month[707]), before the day of the foundation of the\nTemple of Jehovah[708]\u2014lay your hearts_ to that time! _Is there yet_\nany _seed in the barn[709]? And as yet[710] the vine, the fig-tree, the\npomegranate and the olive have not borne_ fruit. _From this day I will\nbless thee._\n\nThis then is the substance of the whole message. On the twenty-fourth\nday of the ninth month, somewhere in our December, the Jews had been\ndiscouraged that their attempts to build the Temple, begun three months\nbefore,[711] had not turned the tide of their misfortunes and produced\nprosperity in their agriculture. Haggai tells them, there is not yet\ntime for the change to work. If contact with a holy thing has only a\nslight effect, but contact with an unclean thing has a much greater\neffect (verses 11-13), then their attempts to build the Temple must\nhave less good influence upon their condition than the bad influence\nof all their past devotion to themselves and their secular labours.\nThat is why adversity still continues, but courage! from this day on\nGod will bless. The whole message is, therefore, opportune to the date\nat which it was delivered, and comes naturally on the back of Haggai\u2019s\nprevious oracles. Andr\u00e9e\u2019s reason for assigning it to another writer,\non the ground of its breaking the connection, does not exist.[712]\n\nThese poor colonists, in their hope deferred, were learning the old\nlesson, which humanity finds so hard to understand, that repentance and\nnew-born zeal do not immediately work a change upon our material\ncondition; but the natural consequences of sin often outweigh the\ninfluence of conversion, and though devoted to God and very industrious\nwe may still be punished for a sinful past. Evil has an infectious\npower greater than that of holiness. Its effects are more extensive and\nlasting.[713] It was no bit of casuistry which Haggai sought to\nillustrate by his appeal to the priests on the ceremonial law, but an\nethical truth deeply embedded in human experience.\n\n\n 4. THE REINVESTMENT OF ISRAEL\u2019S HOPE (Chap. ii. 20-23).\n\nOn the same day Haggai published another oracle, in which he put the\nclimax to his own message by re-investing in Zerubbabel the ancient\nhopes of his people. When the monarchy fell the Messianic hopes were\nnaturally no longer concentrated in the person of a king; and the\ngreat evangelist of the Exile found the elect and anointed Servant of\nJehovah in the people as a whole, or in at least the pious part of\nthem, with functions not of political government but of moral influence\nand instruction towards all the peoples of the earth. Yet in the Exile\nEzekiel still predicted an individual Messiah, a son of the house of\nDavid; only it is significant that, in his latest prophecies delivered\nafter the overthrow of Jerusalem, Ezekiel calls him not _king_[714] any\nmore, but _prince_.[715]\n\nAfter the return of Sheshbazzar to Babylon this position was virtually\nfilled by Zerubbabel, a grandson of Jehoiakin, the second last king\nof Judah, and appointed by the Persian king Pe\u1e25ah or Satrap of Judah.\nHim Haggai now formally names the elect servant of Jehovah. In that\noverturning of the kingdoms of the world which Haggai had predicted two\nmonths before, and which he now explains as their mutual destruction by\nwar, Jehovah of Hosts will make Zerubbabel His signet-ring, inseparable\nfrom Himself and the symbol of His authority.\n\n_And the word of Jehovah came a second time to[716] Haggai on the\ntwenty-fourth day of the_ ninth _month, saying: Speak to Zerubbabel,\nSatrap of Judah, saying: I am about to shake the heavens and the\nearth,[717] and I will overturn the thrones[718] of kingdoms, and will\nshatter the power of the kingdoms of the Gentiles, and will overturn\nchariots[719] and their riders, and horses and their riders will\ncome down, every man by the sword of his brother. In that day\u2014oracle\nof Jehovah of Hosts\u2014I will take Zerubbabel, son of She\u2019alt\u00ee\u2019el, My\nservant\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014and will make him like a signet-ring; for\nthee have I chosen\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts._\n\nThe wars and mutual destruction of the Gentiles, of which Haggai\nspeaks, are doubtless those revolts of races and provinces, which\nthreatened to disrupt the Persian Empire upon the accession of Darius\nin 521. Persians, Babylonians, Medes, Armenians, the Sac\u00e6 and others\nrose together or in succession. In four years Darius quelled them all,\nand reorganised his empire before the Jews finished their Temple. Like\nall the Syrian governors, Zerubbabel remained his poor lieutenant and\nsubmissive tributary. History rolled westward into Europe. Greek and\nPersian began their struggle for the control of its future, and the\nJews fell into an obscurity and oblivion unbroken for centuries. The\n_signet-ring of Jehovah_ was not acknowledged by the world\u2014does not\nseem even to have challenged its briefest attention. But Haggai had at\nleast succeeded in asserting the Messianic hope of Israel, always\nbaffled, never quenched, in this re-opening of her life. He had\ndelivered the ancient heritage of Israel to the care of the new\nJudaism.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHaggai\u2019s place in the succession of prophecy ought now to be clear\nto us. The meagreness of his words and their crabbed style, his\noccupation with the construction of the Temple, his unfulfilled hope in\nZerubbabel, his silence on the great inheritance of truth delivered by\nhis predecessors, and the absence from his prophesying of all visions\nof God\u2019s character and all emphasis upon the ethical elements of\nreligion\u2014these have moved some to depress his value as a prophet almost\nto the vanishing point. Nothing could be more unjust. In his opening\nmessage Haggai evinced the first indispensable power of the prophet: to\nspeak to the situation of the moment, and to succeed in getting men to\ntake up the duty at their feet; in another message he announced a great\nethical principle; in his last he conserved the Messianic traditions\nof his religion, and though not less disappointed than Isaiah in the\npersonality to whom he looked for their fulfilment, he succeeded in\npassing on their hope undiminished to future ages.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[657] See above, pp. 210-18, and emphasise specially the facts that\nthe most pronounced adherents of Kosters\u2019 theory seek to qualify his\nabsolute negation of a Return under Cyrus, by the admission that\nsome Jews did return; and that even Stade, who agrees in the main\nwith Schrader that no attempt was made by the Jews to begin building\nthe Temple till 520, admits the probability of a stone being laid by\nSheshbazzar about 536.\n\n[658] See above, pp. 218 ff.\n\n[659] Hag. i. 4.\n\n[660] Art. \u201cHaggai,\u201d _Encyc. Brit._\n\n[661] Heb. Daryavesh.\n\n[662] Heb. _by the hand of_.\n\n[663] See above, pp. 199 f. and 221.\n\n[664] See below, pp. 258, 279, 292 ff.\n\n[665] Heb. _saying_.\n\n[666] For \u05dc\u05d0\u05b9 \u05e2\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d1\u05b9\u05bc\u05d0 = _not the time of coming_ read with Hitzig and\nWellhausen \u05dc\u05d0\u05b9 \u05e2\u05b7\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc \u05d1\u05b8\u05d0, _not now is come_; for \u05e2\u05b7\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc cf. Ezek. xxiii.\n4, Psalm lxxiv. 6.\n\n[667] The emphasis may be due only to the awkward grammatical\nconstruction.\n\n[668]\u200e \u05e1\u05e4\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd, from \u05e1\u05e4\u05df, _to cover_ with planks of cedar, 2 Kings\nvi. 9: cf. iii. 7.\n\n[669] Heb. _set your hearts_ (see Vol. I., pp. 258, 275, 321, 323)\n_upon your ways_; but _your ways_ cannot mean here, as elsewhere, _your\nconduct_, but obviously from what follows _the ways_ you have been\nled, _the way_ things have gone with you\u2014the barren seasons and little\nincome.\n\n[670] The Hebrew and Versions here insert _set your hearts upon your\nways_, obviously a mere clerical repetition from ver. 5.\n\n[671] For \u05d5\u05d4\u05e0\u05d4 \u05dc\u05de\u05e2\u05d8 read with the LXX. \u05d5\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u05dc\u05de\u05e2\u05d8 or \u05d5\u05d9\u05d4\u05d9.\n\n[672] The \u05e2\u05dc\u05d9\u05db\u05dd here inserted in the Hebrew text is unparsable, not\nfound in the LXX. and probably a clerical error by dittography from the\npreceding \u05e2\u05dc\u05be\u05db\u05df.\n\n[673] Heb. _heavens are shut from dew_. But perhaps the \u05de of \u05de\u05d8\u05dc should\nbe deleted. So Wellhausen. There is no instance of an intransitive Qal\nof \u05db\u05dc\u05d0.\n\n[674] Query?\n\n[675] Vol. I., pp. 162 ff.\n\n[676] See above, p. 227.\n\n[677] The LXX. wrongly takes this last verse of chap. i. as the first\nhalf of the first verse of chap. ii.\n\n[678] Lev. xxiii. 34, 36, 40-42.\n\n[679] _By the hand of._\n\n[680]\u200e \u05d4\u05b2\u05dc\u05d0\u05b9 \u05db\u05b8\u05de\u05b9\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc \u05db\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05df \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e2\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9\u05db\u05b6\u05dd. Literally, _is not the like\nof it as nothing in your eyes_? But that can hardly be the meaning.\nIt might be equivalent to _is it not, as it stands, as nothing in\nyour eyes?_ But the fact is that in Hebrew construction of a simple,\nunemphasised comparison, the comparing particle \u05db stands before _both_\nobjects compared: as, for instance, in the phrase (Gen. xliv. 18)\n\u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 \u05db\u05b8\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05da\u05b8 \u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05e4\u05b7\u05e8\u05b0\u05e2\u05b9\u05d4, _thou art as Pharaoh_.\n\n[681] Literally: _be strong_.\n\n[682] It is difficult to say whether _high priest_ belongs to the text\nor not.\n\n[683] Here occurs the anacolouthic clause, introduced by an acc.\nwithout a verb, which is not found in the LXX. and is probably a gloss\n(see above, p. 241): _The promise which I made with you in your going\nforth from Egypt_.\n\n[684] Hebrew has singular, _costly thing_ or _desirableness_, \u05d7\u05b6\u05de\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05bc\u05ea\n(fem, for neut.), but the verb _shall come_ is in the plural, and the\nLXX. has \u03c4\u03b1 \u1f10\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03ac, _the choice things_. See below, next page.\n\n[685] The LXX. add a parallel clause \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03af\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u1f76 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, which would read in\nHebrew \u05d5\u05b0\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05dc\u05b0\u05d5\u05b7\u05ea \u05e0\u05b6\u05e4\u05b6\u05e9\u05c1 \u05dc\u05b0\u05d7\u05b7\u05d9\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc\u05be\u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05b9\u05b9\u05bc\u05e1\u05b5\u05d3 \u05dc\u05b0\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05de\u05b5\u05dd \u05d4\u05b7\u05d4\u05b5\u05d9\u05db\u05b8\u05dc\n\u05d4\u05b7\u05d6\u05b6\u05bc\u05d4. On \u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea Wellhausen cites 1 Chron. xi. 8, = _restore_ or\n_revive_.\n\n[686]\u200e = \u05d7\u05b6\u05de\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05bc\u05ea _longing_, 2 Chron. xxi. 2, and _object of longing_,\nDan. xi. 37. It is the feminine or neuter, and might be rendered as a\ncollective, _desirable things_. Pusey cites Cicero\u2019s address to his\nwife: _Valete, mea desideria, valete_ (_Ep. ad Famil._, xiv. 2 fin.).\n\n[687]\u200e \u05d7\u05b2\u05de\u05bb\u05d3\u05b9\u05ea plural feminine of pass. part., as in Gen. xxvii. 15,\nwhere it is an adjective, but used as a noun = _precious things_, Dan.\nxi. 38, 43, which use meets the objection of Pusey, _in loco_, where he\nwrongly maintains that _precious things_, if intended, must have been\nexpressed by \u05de\u05b7\u05d7\u05b2\u05de\u05b7\u05d3\u05b5\u05bc\u05d9.\n\n[688] \u1f25\u03be\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f10\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03b8\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd. Theodore of Mopsuestia takes it\nas _elect persons of all nations_, to which a few moderns adhere.\n\n[689] Augustini _Contra Donatistas post Collationem_, cap. xx. 30\n(Migne, _Latin Patrology_, XLIII., p. 671).\n\n[690] Calvin, _Comm. in Haggai_, ii. 6-9.\n\n[691] Deut. xvii. 8 ff.: \u05e2\u05b7\u05dc\u05be\u05e4\u05bc\u05d9 \u05d4\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b8\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8 \u05d9\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc\u05da\u05b8. Compare the\nexpression \u05db\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05d4\u05b5\u05df \u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b6\u05d4, in 2 Chron. xv. 3, and the duties of the\nteaching priests assigned by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xvii. 7-9) to the\ndays of Jehoshaphat.\n\n[692] Note that it is not _the Torah_, but _a Torah_.\n\n[693] The nearest passage to the _deliverance_ of the priests to Haggai\nis Lev. vi. 20, 21 (Heb.), 27, 28 (Eng.). This is part of the Priestly\nCode not promulgated till 445 B.C., but based, of course, on long\nextant custom, some of it very ancient. _Everything that touches the\nflesh_ (of the sin-offering, which is holy) _shall be holy_\u2014\u05d9\u05b4\u05e7\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05bc\u05e9\u05c1,\nthe verb used by the priests in their answer to Haggai\u2014_and when any\nof its blood has been sprinkled on a garment, that whereon it was\nsprinkled shall be washed in a holy place. The earthen vessel wherein\nit has been boiled shall be broken, and if it has been boiled in a\nbrazen vessel, this shall be scoured and rinsed with water._\n\n[694] So several old edd. and many codd., and adopted by Baer (see his\nnote _in loco_) in his text. But most of the edd. of the Massoretic\ntext read \u05d1\u05d9\u05d3 after Cod. Hill. For the importance of the question see\nabove, p. 227.\n\n[695] Torah.\n\n[696]\u200e \u05ea\u05b0\u05bc\u05de\u05b5\u05d0 \u05e0\u05b6\u05e4\u05b6\u05e9\u05c1.\n\n[697] There does not appear to be the contrast between indirect contact\nwith a holy thing and direct contact with a polluted which Wellhausen\nsays there is. In either case the articles whose character is in\nquestion stand second from the source of holiness and pollution\u2014the\nholy flesh and the corpse.\n\n[698] See above, p. 245, n. 693.\n\n[699] Pusey, _in loco_.\n\n[700] The LXX. have here found inserted three other clauses: \u1f15\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u1f7c\u03bd\n\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03c1\u03b8\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd, \u1f40\u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd,\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c0\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2. The first clause is a misreading\n(Wellhausen), \u05d9\u05b7\u05e2\u05b7\u05df \u05dc\u05b4\u05e7\u05b0\u05d7\u05b9\u05ea\u05b8\u05dd \u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05d7\u05b7\u05e8 for \u05d9\u05b7\u05e2\u05b7\u05df \u05dc\u05b0\u05e7\u05b7\u05d7\u05b0\u05ea\u05b6\u05bc\u05dd \u05e9\u05b9\u05c1\u05d7\u05b7\u05d3,\n_because ye take a bribe_, and goes well with the third clause,\nmodified from Amos v. 10: \u05e9\u05b8\u05c2\u05e0\u05b0\u05d0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d1\u05b7\u05e9\u05b7\u05bc\u05c1\u05e2\u05b7\u05e8 \u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05db\u05b4\u05d9\u05d7\u05b7, _they hate him\nwho reproves in the gate_. These may have been inserted into the Hebrew\ntext by some one puzzled to know what the source of the people\u2019s\npollution was, and who absurdly found it in sins which in Haggai\u2019s time\nit was impossible to impute to them. The middle clause, \u05d9\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05e0\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\n\u05de\u05b4\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9 \u05e2\u05b7\u05e6\u05b0\u05d1\u05b5\u05d9\u05d4\u05b6\u05dd, _they vex themselves with their labours_, is\nsuitable to the sense of the Hebrew text of the verse, as Wellhausen\npoints out, but besides gives a connection with what follows.\n\n[701] From this day and onward.\n\n[702] Heb. literally _since they were_. A.V. _since those days were_.\n\n[703] Winevat, \u05d9\u05b6\u05e7\u05b6\u05d1, is distinguished from winepress, \u05d2\u05ea, in Josh.\nix. 13, and is translated by the Greek \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd Mark xii. I, \u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd\nMatt. xxi. 33, _dug a pit for the winepress_; but the name is applied\nsometimes to the whole winepress\u2014Hosea ix. 2 etc., Job xxiv. 11, _to\ntread the winepress_. The word translated _measures_, as in LXX.\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac\u03c2, is \u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e8\u05b8\u05d4, and that is properly the vat in which the grapes\nwere trodden (Isa. lxiii. 3), but here it can scarcely mean fifty\n_vatfuls_, but must refer to some smaller measure\u2014cask?\n\n[704] See above, pp. 228 f., n. 625.\n\n[705] The words omitted cannot be construed in the Hebrew,\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b5\u05d9\u05df\u05be\u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05b0\u05db\u05b6\u05dd \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b7\u05d9, literally _and not you_ (acc.) _to Me_. Hitzig,\netc., propose to read \u05d0\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05bc\u05db\u05dd and render _there was none with you_ who\nturned _to Me_. Others propose \u05d0\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b0\u05db\u05b6\u05dd, _as if none of you_ turned _to\nMe_. Others retain \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05b0\u05db\u05b6\u05dd and render _as for you_. The versions LXX.\nSyr., Vulg. _ye will not return_ or _did not return to Me_, reading\nperhaps for \u05dc\u05d0\u05b9 \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05d1\u05b0\u05ea\u05b6\u05bc\u05dd ,\u05d0\u05b5\u05d9\u05df \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05b0\u05db\u05b6\u05dd, which is found in Amos iv. 9,\nof which the rest of the verse is an echo. Wellhausen deletes the whole\nverse as a gloss. It is certainly suspicious, and remarkable in that\nthe LXX. text has already introduced two citations from Amos. See above\non ver. 14.\n\n[706] Heb. _from this day backwards_.\n\n[707] The date Wellhausen thinks was added by a later hand.\n\n[708] This is the ambiguous clause on different interpretations\nof which so much has been founded: \u05dc\u05b0\u05de\u05b4\u05df\u05be\u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8\u05be\u05d9\u05bb\u05e1\u05b7\u05bc\u05d3\n\u05d4\u05b5\u05d9\u05db\u05b7\u05dc\u05be\u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u05b9\u05d4. Does this clause, in simple parallel to the previous\none, describe the day on which the prophet was speaking, _the\ntwenty-fourth day of the ninth month_, the _terminus a quo_ of the\npeople\u2019s retrospect? In that case Haggai regards the foundation-stone\nof the Temple as laid on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month 520\nB.C., and does not know, or at least ignores, any previous laying\nof a foundation-stone. So Kuenen, Kosters, Andr\u00e9e, etc. Or does \u05dc\u05de\u05df\nsignify _up to the time the foundation-stone was laid_, and state a\n_terminus ad quem_ for the people\u2019s retrospect? So Ewald and others,\nwho therefore find in the verse a proof that Haggai knew of an earlier\nlaying of the foundation-stone. But that \u05dc\u05de\u05df is ever used for \u05d5\u05e2\u05d3\ncannot be proved, and indeed is disproved by Jer. vii. 7, where it\noccurs in contrast to \u05d5\u05e2\u05d3. Van Hoonacker finds the same, but in a more\nsubtle translation of \u05de\u05df .\u05dc\u05de\u05df, he says, is never used except of a\ndate distant from the speaker or writer of it; \u05dc\u05de\u05df (if I understand\nhim aright) refers therefore to a date previous to Haggai to which\nthe people\u2019s thoughts are directed by the \u05dc and then brought back\nfrom it to the date at which he was speaking by means of the \u05de\u05df: \u201cla\npr\u00e9position \u05dc signifie la direction de l\u2019esprit vers une \u00e9poque du pass\u00e9\nd\u2019o\u00f9 il est ramen\u00e9 par la pr\u00e9position \u05de\u05df.\u201d But surely \u05de\u05df can be used\n(as indeed Haggai has just used it) to signify extension backwards from\nthe standpoint of the speaker; and although in the passages cited by\nVan Hoonacker of the use of \u05dc\u05de\u05df it always refers to a past date\u2014Deut.\nix. 7, Judg. xix. 30, 2 Sam. vi. 11, Jer. vii. 7 and 25\u2014still, as it\nis there nothing but a pleonastic form for \u05de\u05df, it surely might be\nemployed as \u05de\u05df is sometimes employed for departure from the present\nbackwards. Nor in any case is it used to express what Van Hoonacker\nseeks to draw from it here, the idea of direction of the mind to a\npast event and then an immediate return from that. Had Haggai wished\nto express that idea he would have phrased it thus: \u05dc\u05de\u05df \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05d9\u05e1\u05d3\n\u05d4\u05d9\u05db\u05dc \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d5\u05e2\u05d3 \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd \u05d4\u05d6\u05d4 (as Kosters remarks). Besides, as Kosters has\npointed out (pp. 7 ff. of the Germ. trans. of _Het Herstel_, etc.),\neven if Van Hoonacker\u2019s translation of \u05dc\u05de\u05df were correct, the context\nwould show that it might refer only to a laying of the foundation-stone\nsince Haggai\u2019s first address to the people, and therefore the question\nof an earlier foundation-stone under Cyrus would remain unsolved.\nConsequently Haggai ii. 18 cannot be quoted as a proof of the latter.\nSee above, p. 216.\n\n[709] Meaning _there is none_.\n\n[710]\u200e \u05d5\u05e2\u05d5\u05d3 or \u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b9\u05d3 for \u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05d3, after LXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f30 \u1f14\u03c4\u03b9.\n\n[711] The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, according to chap. i.\n15.\n\n[712] See above, p. 228.\n\n[713]\n\n \u201cFor I believe the devil\u2019s voice\n Sinks deeper in our ear,\n Than any whisper sent from heaven,\n However sweet and clear.\u201d\n\n\n[714] Only in xxxiv. 24, xxxvii. 22, 24.\n\n[715]\u200e \u05e0\u05e9\u05c2\u05d9\u05d0: cf. Skinner, _Ezekiel_ (Expositor\u2019s Bible Series), pp.\n447 ff., who, however, attributes the diminution of the importance of\nthe civil head in Israel, not to the feeling that he would henceforth\nalways be subject to a foreign emperor, but to the conviction that in\nthe future he will be \u201covershadowed by the personal presence of Jehovah\nin the midst of His people.\u201d\n\n[716] See above, p. 227.\n\n[717] LXX. enlarges: _and the sea and the dry land_.\n\n[718] Heb. sing. collect. LXX. plural.\n\n[719] Again a sing. coll.\n\n\n\n\n _ZECHARIAH_\n\n (_I.-VIII._)\n\n\n\n\n _Not by might, and not by force, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of\n Hosts._\n\n _Be not afraid, strengthen your hands! Speak truth, every man to his\n neighbour; truth and wholesome judgment judge ye in your gates, and in\n your hearts plan no evil for each other, nor take pleasure in false\n swearing, for all these things do I hate\u2014oracle of Jehovah._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIX\n\n _THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH (I.-VIII.)_\n\n\nThe Book of Zechariah, consisting of fourteen chapters, falls clearly\ninto two divisions: _First_, chaps. i.\u2014viii., ascribed to Zechariah\nhimself and full of evidence for their authenticity; _Second_, chaps.\nix.\u2014xiv., which are not ascribed to Zechariah, and deal with conditions\ndifferent from those upon which he worked. The full discussion of the\ndate and character of this second section we shall reserve till we\nreach the period at which we believe it to have been written. Here an\nintroduction is necessary only to chaps. i.\u2014viii.\n\nThese chapters may be divided into five sections.\n\n I. Chap. i. 1-6.\u2014A Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah in the\n eighth month of the second year of Darius, that is in November 520\n B.C., or between the second and the third oracles of Haggai.[720] In\n this the prophet\u2019s place is affirmed in the succession of the prophets\n of Israel. The ancient prophets are gone, but their predictions have\n been fulfilled in the calamities of the Exile, and God\u2019s Word abides\n for ever.\n\n II. Chap. i. 7\u2014vi. 9.\u2014A Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah on the\n twenty-fourth of the eleventh month of the same year, that is January\n or February 519, and which he reproduces in the form of eight Visions\n by night. (1) The Vision of the Four Horsemen: God\u2019s new mercies to\n Jerusalem (chap. i. 7-17). (2) The Vision of the Four Horns, or Powers\n of the World, and the Four Smiths, who smite them down (ii. 1-4 Heb.,\n but in the Septuagint and in the English Version i. 18-21). (3) The\n Vision of the Man with the Measuring Rope: Jerusalem shall be rebuilt,\n no longer as a narrow fortress, but spread abroad for the multitude of\n her population (chap. ii. 5-9 Heb., ii. 1-5 LXX. and Eng.). To this\n Vision is appended a lyric piece of probably older date calling upon\n the Jews in Babylon to return, and celebrating the joining of many\n peoples to Jehovah, now that He takes up again His habitation in\n Jerusalem (chap. ii. 10-17 Heb., ii. 6-13 LXX. and Eng.). (4) The\n Vision of Joshua, the High Priest, and the Satan or Accuser: the Satan\n is rebuked, and Joshua is cleansed from his foul garments and clothed\n with a new turban and festal apparel; the land is purged and secure\n (chap. iii.). (5) The Vision of the Seven-Branched Lamp and the Two\n Olive-Trees (chap. iv. 1-6_a_, 10_b_-14): into the centre of this has\n been inserted a Word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel (vv. 6_b_-10_a_), which\n interrupts the Vision and ought probably to come at the close of it.\n (6) The Vision of the Flying Book: it is the curse of the land, which\n is being removed, but after destroying the houses of the wicked (chap.\n v. 1-4). (7) The Vision of the Bushel and the Woman: that is the guilt\n of the land and its wickedness; they are carried off and planted in\n the land of Shin\u2018ar (v. 5-11). (8) The Vision of the Four Chariots:\n they go forth from the Lord of all the earth, to traverse the earth\n and bring His Spirit, or anger, to bear on the North country (chap.\n vi. 1-8).\n\n III. Chap. vi. 9-15.\u2014A Word of Jehovah, undated (unless it is to be\n taken as of the same date as the Visions to which it is attached),\n giving directions as to the gifts sent to the community at Jerusalem\n from the Babylonian Jews. A crown is to be made from the silver and\n gold, and, according to the text, placed upon the head of Joshua. But,\n as we shall see,[721] the text gives evident signs of having been\n altered in the interest of the High Priest; and probably the crown\n was meant for Zerubbabel, at whose right hand the priest is to stand,\n and there shall be a counsel of peace between the two of them. The\n far-away shall come and assist at the building of the Temple. This\n section breaks off in the middle of a sentence.\n\n IV. Chap. vii.\u2014The Word of Jehovah which came to Zechariah on the\n fourth of the ninth month of the fourth year of Darius, that is nearly\n two years after the date of the Visions. The Temple was approaching\n completion; and an inquiry was addressed to the priests who were in it\n and to the prophets concerning the Fasts, which had been maintained\n during the Exile, while the Temple lay desolate (chap. vii. 1-3). This\n inquiry drew from Zechariah a historical explanation of how the Fasts\n arose (chap. vii. 4-14).\n\n V. Chap. viii.\u2014Ten short undated oracles, each introduced by the same\n formula, _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts_, and summarising all\n Zechariah\u2019s teaching since before the Temple began up to the question\n of the cessation of the Fasts upon its completion\u2014with promises for\n the future. (1) A Word affirming Jehovah\u2019s new zeal for Jerusalem and\n His Return to her (vv. 1, 2). (2) Another of the same (ver. 3). (3) A\n Word promising fulness of old folk and children in her streets (vv. 4,\n 5). (4) A Word affirming that nothing is too wonderful for Jehovah\n (ver. 6). (5) A Word promising the return of the people from east and\n west (vv. 7, 8). (6 and 7) Two Words contrasting, in terms similar to\n Haggai i., the poverty of the people before the foundation of the\n Temple with their new prosperity: from a curse Israel shall become a\n blessing. This is due to God\u2019s anger having changed into a purpose of\n grace to Jerusalem. But the people themselves must do truth and\n justice, ceasing from perjury and thoughts of evil against each other\n (vv. 9-17). (8) A Word which recurs to the question of Fasting, and\n commands that the four great Fasts, instituted to commemorate the\n siege and overthrow of Jerusalem, and the murder of Gedaliah, be\n changed to joy and gladness (vv. 18, 19). (9) A Word predicting the\n coming of the Gentiles to the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem (vv.\n 20-22). (10) Another of the same (ver. 23).\n\nThere can be little doubt that, apart from the few interpolations\nnoted, these eight chapters are genuine prophecies of Zechariah, who is\nmentioned in the Book of Ezra as the colleague of Haggai, and\ncontemporary of Zerubbabel and Joshua at the time of the rebuilding of\nthe Temple.[722] Like the oracles of Haggai, these prophecies are dated\naccording to the years of Darius the king, from his second year to his\nfourth. Although they may contain some of the exhortations to build the\nTemple, which the Book of Ezra informs us that Zechariah made along\nwith Haggai, the most of them presuppose progress in the work, and seek\nto assist it by historical retrospect and by glowing hopes of the\nMessianic effects of its completion. Their allusions suit exactly the\nyears to which they are assigned. Darius is king. The Exile has lasted\nabout seventy years.[723] Numbers of Jews remain in Babylon,[724] and\nare scattered over the rest of the world.[725] The community at\nJerusalem is small and weak: it is the mere colony of young men and men\nin middle life who came to it from Babylon; there are few children and\nold folk.[726] Joshua and Zerubbabel are the heads of the community,\nand the pledges for its future.[727] The exact conditions are recalled\nas recent which Haggai spoke of a few years before.[728] Moreover,\nthere is a steady and orderly progress throughout the prophecies, in\nharmony with the successive dates at which they were delivered. In\nNovember 520 they begin with a cry to repentance and lessons drawn from\nthe past of prophecy.[729] In January 519 Temple and City are still to\nbe built.[730] Zerubbabel has laid the foundation; the completion is\nyet future.[731] The prophet\u2019s duty is to quiet the people\u2019s\napprehensions about the state of the world,[732] to provoke their\nzeal,[733] give them confidence in their great men,[734] and, above\nall, assure them that God is returned to them[735] and their sin\npardoned.[736] But in December 518 the Temple is so far built that the\npriests are said to belong to it;[737] there is no occasion for\ncontinuing the fasts of the Exile,[738] the future has opened and the\nhorizon is bright with the Messianic hopes.[739] Most of all, it is\nfelt that the hard struggle with the forces of nature is over, and the\npeople are exhorted to the virtues of the civic life.[740] They have\ntime to lift their eyes from their work and see the nations coming from\nafar to Jerusalem.[741]\n\nThese features leave no room for doubt that the great bulk of the first\neight chapters of the Book of Zechariah are by the prophet himself, and\nfrom the years to which he assigns them, November 520 to December 518.\nThe point requires no argument.\n\nThere are, however, three passages which provoke further\nexamination\u2014two of them because of the signs they bear of an earlier\ndate, and one because of the alteration it has suffered in the\ninterests of a later day in Israel\u2019s history.\n\nThe lyric passage which is appended to the Second Vision (chap. ii\n10-17 Heb., 6-13 LXX. and Eng.) suggests questions by its singularity:\nthere is no other such among the Visions. But in addition to this it\nspeaks not only of the Return from Babylon as still future[742]\u2014this\nmight still be said after the First Return of the exiles in\n536[743]\u2014but it differs from the language of all the Visions proper in\ndescribing the return of Jehovah Himself to Zion as still future. The\nwhole, too, has the ring of the great odes in Isaiah xl.\u2014lv., and seems\nto reflect the same situation, upon the eve of Cyrus\u2019 conquest of\nBabylon. There can be little doubt that we have here inserted in\nZechariah\u2019s Visions a song of twenty years earlier, but we must confess\ninability to decide whether it was adopted by Zechariah himself or\nadded by a later hand.[744]\n\nAgain, there are the two passages called the Word of Jehovah to\nZerubbabel, chap. iv. 6_b_-10_a_; and the Word of Jehovah concerning\nthe gifts which came to Jerusalem from the Jews in Babylon, chap. vi.\n9-15. The first, as Wellhausen has shown,[745] is clearly out of place;\nit disturbs the narrative of the Vision, and is to be put at the end\nof the latter. The second is undated, and separate from the Visions.\nThe second plainly affirms that the building of the Temple is still\nfuture. The man whose name is Branch or Shoot is designated: _and he\nshall build the Temple of Jehovah_. The first is in the same temper\nas the first two oracles of Haggai. It is possible then that these\ntwo passages are not, like the Visions with which they are taken, to\nbe dated from 519, but represent that still earlier prophesying of\nZechariah with which we are told he assisted Haggai in instigating the\npeople to begin to build the Temple.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe style of the prophet Zechariah betrays special features almost only\nin the narrative of the Visions. Outside these his language is simple,\ndirect and pure, as it could not but be, considering how much of it is\ndrawn from, or modelled upon, the older prophets,[746] and chiefly\nHosea and Jeremiah. Only one or two lapses into a careless and\ndegenerate dialect show us how the prophet might have written, had he\nnot been sustained by the music of the classical periods of the\nlanguage.[747]\n\nThis directness and pith is not shared by the language in which the\nVisions are narrated.[748] Here the style is involved and redundant.\nThe syntax is loose; there is a frequent omission of the copula, and of\nother means by which, in better Hebrew, connection and conciseness are\nsustained. The formulas, _thus saith_ and _saying_, are repeated to\nweariness. At the same time it is fair to ask, how much of this\nredundancy was due to Zechariah himself? Take the Septuagint version.\nThe Hebrew text, which it followed, not only included a number of\nrepetitions of the formulas, and of the designations of the personages\nintroduced into the Visions, which do not occur in the Massoretic\ntext,[749] but omitted some which are found in the Massoretic\ntext.[750] These two sets of phenomena prove that from an early date\nthe copiers of the original text of Zechariah must have been busy in\nincreasing its redundancies. Further, there are still earlier\nintrusions and expansions, for these are shared by both the Hebrew and\nthe Greek texts: some of them very natural efforts to clear up the\npersonages and conversations recorded in the dreams,[751] some of them\nstupid mistakes in understanding the drift of the argument.[752] There\nmust of course have been a certain amount of redundancy in the original\nto provoke such aggravations of it, and of obscurity or tortuousness of\nstyle to cause them to be deemed necessary. But it would be very unjust\nto charge all the faults of our present text to Zechariah himself,\nespecially when we find such force and simplicity in the passages\noutside the Visions. Of course the involved and misty subjects of the\nlatter naturally forced upon the description of them a laboriousness of\nart, to which there was no provocation in directly exhorting the people\nto a pure life, or in straightforward predictions of the Messianic era.\n\nBeyond the corruptions due to these causes, the text of Zechariah\ni.\u2014viii. has not suffered more than that of our other prophets. There\nare one or two clerical errors;[753] an occasional preposition or\nperson of a verb needs to be amended. Here and there the text has been\ndisarranged;[754] and as already noticed, there has been one serious\nalteration of the original.[755]\n\nFrom the foregoing paragraphs it must be apparent what help and\nhindrance in the reconstruction of the text is furnished by the\nSeptuagint. A list of its variant readings and of its mistranslations\nis appended.[756]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[720] See above, pp. 225 ff.\n\n[721] Below, p. 308.\n\n[722] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14.\n\n[723] i. 12, vii. 5: reckoning in round numbers from 590, midway\nbetween the two Exiles of 597 and 586, that brings us to about 520, the\nsecond year of Darius.\n\n[724] ii. 6 (Eng., Heb. 10). On the question whether the Book of\nZechariah gives no evidence of a previous Return from Babylon see\nabove, pp. 208 ff.\n\n[725] viii. 7, etc.\n\n[726] viii. 4, 5.\n\n[727] iii. 1-10, iv. 6-10, vi. 11 ff.\n\n[728] viii. 9, 10.\n\n[729] i. 1-6.\n\n[730] i. 7-17.\n\n[731] iv. 6-10.\n\n[732] i. 7-21 (Eng., Heb. i. 7\u2014ii. 4).\n\n[733] iv. 6 ff.\n\n[734] iii., iv.\n\n[735] i. 16.\n\n[736] v.\n\n[737] vii. 3.\n\n[738] vii. 1-7, viii. 18, 19.\n\n[739] viii. 20-23.\n\n[740] viii. 16, 17.\n\n[741] viii. 20-23.\n\n[742] ii. 10 f. Heb., 6 f. LXX. and Eng.\n\n[743] Though the expression _I have scattered you to the four winds of\nheaven_ seems to imply the Exile before any return.\n\n[744] For the bearing of this on Kosters\u2019 theory of the Return see pp.\n211 f.\n\n[745] See below, p. 300.\n\n[746] Outside the Visions the prophecies contain these echoes or\nrepetitions of earlier writers: chap. i. 1-6 quotes the constant\nrefrain of prophetic preaching before the Exile, and in chap. vii. 7-14\n(ver. 8 must be deleted) is given a summary of that preaching; in chap.\nviii. ver. 3 echoes Isa. i. 21, 26, _city of troth_, and Jer. xxxi. 23,\n_mountain of holiness_ (there is really no connection, as Kuenen holds,\nbetween ver. 4 and Isa. lxv. 20; it would create more interesting\nquestions as to the date of the latter if there were); ver. 8 is based\non Hosea ii. 15 Heb., 19 Eng., and Jer. xxxi. 33; ver. 12 is based on\nHosea ii. 21 f. (Heb. 23 f.); with ver. 13 compare Jer. xlii. 18, _a\ncurse_; vv. 21 ff. with Isa. ii. 3 and Micah iv. 2.\n\n[747] _E.g._ vii. 5, \u05e6\u05b7\u05de\u05b0\u05ea\u05bb\u05bc\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 for \u05e6\u05b7\u05de\u05b0\u05ea\u05b6\u05bc\u05dd \u05dc\u05b4\u05d9: cf. Ewald,\n_Syntax_, \u00a7 315_b_. The curious use of the acc. in the following verse\nis perhaps only apparent; part of the text may have fallen out.\n\n[748] Though there are not wanting, of course, echoes here as in the\nother prophecies of older writings, _e.g._ i. 12, 17.\n\n[749]\u200e \u05dc\u05d0\u05de\u05e8, _saying_, ii. 8 (Gr. ii. 4); iv. 5, _And the angel who\nspoke with me said_; i. 17, cf. vi. 5. _All_ is inserted in i. 11, iii.\n9; _lord_ in ii. 2; _of hosts_ (after _Jehovah_) viii. 17; and there\nare other instances of palpable expansion, _e.g._ i. 6, 8, ii. 4 bis,\n6, viii. 19.\n\n[750] _E.g._ ii. 2, iv. 2, 13, v. 9, vi. 12 bis, vii. 8: cf. also vi.\n13.\n\n[751] i. 8 ff., iii. 4 ff.: cf. also vi. 3 with vv. 6 f.\n\n[752] _E.g._ (but this is outside the Visions) the very flagrant\nmisunderstanding to which the insertion of vii. 8 is due.\n\n[753] v. 6, \u05e2\u05d9\u05e0\u05dd for \u05e2\u05d5\u05e0\u05dd as in LXX., and the last words of v. 11;\nperhaps vi. 10; and almost certainly vii. 2_a_.\n\n[754] Chap. iv. On 6_a_, 10_b_-14 should immediately follow, and\n6_b_-10_a_ come after 14.\n\n[755] vi. 11 ff. See below, pp. 308 f.\n\n[756] Chief variants: i. 8, 10; ii. 15; iii. 4; iv. 7, 12; v. 1, 3, 4,\n9; vi. 10, 13; vii. 3; viii. 8, 9, 12, 20. Obvious mistranslations or\nmisreadings: ii. 9, 10, 15, 17; iii. 4; iv. 7, 10; v. 1, 4, 9; vi. 10,\ncf. 14; vii. 3.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XX\n\n _ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET_\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 1-6, etc.; EZRA v. 1, vi. 14\n\n\nZechariah is one of the prophets whose personality as distinguished\nfrom their message exerts some degree of fascination on the student.\nThis is not due, however, as in the case of Hosea or Jeremiah, to\nthe facts of his life, for of these we know extremely little; but to\ncertain conflicting symptoms of character which appear through his\nprophecies.\n\nHis name was a very common one in Israel, Zekher-Yah, _Jehovah\nremembers_.[757] In his own book he is described as _the son of\nBerekh-Yah, the son of Iddo_,[758] and in the Aramaic document of the\nBook of Ezra as _the son of Iddo_.[759] Some have explained this\ndifference by supposing that Berekhyah was the actual father of the\nprophet, but that either he died early, leaving Zechariah to the care\nof the grandfather, or else that he was a man of no note, and Iddo was\nmore naturally mentioned as the head of the family. There are several\ninstances in the Old Testament of men being called the sons of their\ngrandfathers:[760] as in these cases the grandfather was the reputed\nfounder of the house, so in that of Zechariah Iddo was the head of his\nfamily when it came out of Babylon and was anew planted in Jerusalem.\nOthers, however, have contested the genuineness of the words _son of\nBerekh-Yah_, and have traced their insertion to a confusion of the\nprophet with Zechariah son of Y\u0115bherekh-Yahu, the contemporary of\nIsaiah.[761] This is precarious, while the other hypothesis is a very\nnatural one.[762] Whichever be correct, the prophet Zechariah was a\nmember of the priestly family of Iddo, that came up to Jerusalem from\nBabylon under Cyrus.[763] The Book of Nehemiah adds that in the\nhigh-priesthood of Yoyakim, the son of Joshua, the head of the house of\nIddo was a Zechariah.[764] If this be our prophet, then he was probably\na young man in 520,[765] and had come up as a child in the caravans\nfrom Babylon. The Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra[766] assigns to\nZechariah a share with Haggai in the work of instigating Zerubbabel and\nJeshua to begin the Temple. None of his oracles is dated previous to\nthe beginning of the work in August 520, but we have seen[767] that\namong those undated there are one or two which by referring to the\nbuilding of the Temple as still future may contain some relics of that\nfirst stage of his ministry. From November 520 we have the first of his\ndated oracles; his Visions followed in January 519, and his last\nrecorded prophesying in December 518.[768]\n\nThese are all the certain events of Zechariah\u2019s history. But in the\nwell-attested prophecies he has left we discover, besides some obvious\ntraits of character, certain problems of style and expression which\nsuggest a personality of more than usual interest. Loyalty to the great\nvoices of old, the temper which appeals to the experience, rather than\nto the dogmas, of the past, the gift of plain speech to his own times,\na wistful anxiety about his reception as a prophet[769] combined with\nthe absence of all ambition to be original or anything but the clear\nvoice of the lessons of the past and of the conscience of to-day\u2014these\nare the qualities which characterise Zechariah\u2019s orations to the\npeople. But how to reconcile them with the strained art and obscure\ntruths of the Visions\u2014it is this which invests with interest the study\nof his personality. We have proved that the obscurity and redundancy of\nthe Visions cannot all have been due to himself. Later hands have\nexaggerated the repetitions and ravelled the processes of the original.\nBut these gradual blemishes have not grown from nothing: the original\nstyle must have been sufficiently involved to provoke the\ninterpolations of the scribes, and it certainly contained all the weird\nand shifting apparitions which we find so hard to make clear to\nourselves. The problem, therefore, remains\u2014how one who had gift of\nspeech, so straight and clear, came to torture and tangle his style;\nhow one who presented with all plainness the main issues of his\npeople\u2019s history found it laid upon him to invent, for the further\nexpression of these, symbols so laboured and intricate.\n\nWe begin with the oracle, which opens his book and illustrates those\nsimple characteristics of the man that contrast so sharply with the\ntemper of his Visions.\n\n_In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Jehovah\ncame to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berekhyah, son of Iddo,[770]\nsaying: Jehovah was very wroth[771] with your fathers. And thou shalt\nsay unto them: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Turn ye to Me\u2014oracle of\nJehovah of Hosts\u2014that I may turn to you, saith Jehovah of Hosts! Be not\nlike your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying: \u201cThus\nsaith Jehovah of Hosts, Turn now from your evil ways and from[772] your\nevil deeds,\u201d but they hearkened not, and paid no attention to Me\u2014oracle\nof Jehovah. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they\nlive for ever? But[773] My words and My statutes, with which I charged\nMy servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? till\nthese turned and said, As Jehovah of Hosts did purpose to do unto us,\naccording to our deeds and according to our ways, so hath He dealt with\nus._\n\nIt is a sign of the new age which we have reached, that its prophet\nshould appeal to the older prophets with as much solemnity as they\ndid to Moses himself. The history which led to the Exile has become\nto Israel as classic and sacred as her great days of deliverance from\nEgypt and of conquest in Canaan. But still more significant is what\nZechariah seeks from that past; this we must carefully discover, if we\nwould appreciate with exactness his rank as a prophet.\n\nThe development of religion may be said to consist of a struggle\nbetween two tempers, both of which indeed appeal to the past, but from\nvery opposite motives. The one proves its devotion to the older\nprophets by adopting the exact formulas of their doctrine, counts these\nsacred to the letter, and would enforce them in detail upon the minds\nand circumstances of the new generation. It conceives that truth has\nbeen promulgated once for all in forms as enduring as the principles\nthey contain. It fences ancient rites, cherishes old customs and\ninstitutions, and when these are questioned it becomes alarmed and even\nsavage. The other temper is no whit behind this one in its devotion to\nthe past, but it seeks the ancient prophets not so much for what they\nhave said as for what they have been, not for what they enforced but\nfor what they encountered, suffered and confessed. It asks not for\ndogmas but for experience and testimony. He who can thus read the past\nand interpret it to his own day\u2014he is the prophet. In his reading he\nfinds nothing so clear, nothing so tragic, nothing so convincing as the\nworking of the Word of God. He beholds how this came to men, haunted\nthem and was entreated by them. He sees that it was their great\nopportunity, which being rejected became their judgment. He finds\nabused justice vindicated, proud wrong punished, and all God\u2019s\nneglected commonplaces achieving in time their triumph. He reads how\nmen came to see this, and to confess their guilt. He is haunted by the\nremorse of generations who know how they might have obeyed the Divine\ncall, but wilfully did not. And though they have perished, and the\nprophets have died and their formulas are no more applicable, the\nvictorious Word itself still lives and cries to men with the terrible\nemphasis of their fathers\u2019 experience. All this is the vision of the\ntrue prophet, and it was the vision of Zechariah.\n\nHis generation was one whose chief temptation was to adopt towards\nthe past the other attitude we have described. In their feebleness\nwhat could the poor remnant of Israel do but cling servilely to the\nformer greatness? The vindication of the Exile had stamped the Divine\nauthority of the earlier prophets. The habits, which the life in\nBabylon had perfected, of arranging and codifying the literature of\nthe past, and of employing it, in place of altar and ritual, in the\nstated service of God, had canonised Scripture and provoked men to\nthe worship of its very letter. Had the real prophet not again been\nraised, these habits might have too early produced the belief that the\nWord of God was exhausted, and must have fastened upon the feeble life\nof Israel that mass of stiff and stark dogmas, the literal application\nof which Christ afterwards found crushing the liberty and the force of\nreligion. Zechariah prevented this\u2014for a time. He himself was mighty\nin the Scriptures of the past: no man in Israel makes larger use of\nthem. But he employs them as witnesses, not as dogmas; he finds in them\nnot authority, but experience.[774] He reads their testimony to the\never-living presence of God\u2019s Word with men. And seeing that, though\nthe old forms and figures have perished with the hearts which shaped\nthem, the Word itself in its bare truth has vindicated its life by\nfulfilment in history, he knows that it lives still, and hurls it upon\nhis people, not in the forms published by this or that prophet of long\nago, but in its essence and direct from God Himself, as His Word for\nto-day and now. _The fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they\nlive for ever? But My words and My statutes, with which I charged My\nservants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? Thus saith\nJehovah of Hosts, Be ye not like your fathers, but turn ye to Me that I\nmay turn to you._\n\nThe argument of this oracle might very naturally have been narrowed\ninto a credential for the prophet himself as sent from God. About his\nreception as Jehovah\u2019s messenger Zechariah shows a repeated anxiety.\nFour times he concludes a prediction with the words, _And ye shall know\nthat Jehovah hath sent me_,[775] as if after his first utterances he\nhad encountered that suspicion and unbelief which a prophet never\nfailed to suffer from his contemporaries. But in this oracle there is\nno trace of such personal anxiety. The oracle is pervaded only with the\ndesire to prove the ancient Word of God as still alive, and to drive it\nhome in its own sheer force. Like the greatest of his order, Zechariah\nappears with the call to repent: _Turn ye to Me\u2014oracle of Jehovah of\nHosts\u2014that I may turn to you_. This is the pivot on which history has\nturned, the one condition on which God has been able to help men.\nWherever it is read as the conclusion of all the past, wherever it is\nproclaimed as the conscience of the present, there the true prophet is\nfound and the Word of God has been spoken.\n\nThe same possession by the ethical spirit reappears, as we shall see,\nin Zechariah\u2019s orations to the people after the anxieties of building\nare over and the completion of the Temple is in sight. In these he\naffirms again that the whole essence of God\u2019s Word by the older\nprophets has been moral\u2014to judge true judgment, to practise mercy, to\ndefend the widow and orphan, the stranger and poor, and to think no\nevil of one another. For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins\ngladness, with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again and again\nhe enforces sincerity and the love without dissimulation. His ideals\nfor Jerusalem are very high, including the conversion of the nations to\nher God. But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and\nhis pictures of her future condition are homely and practical.\nJerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but spread village-wise without\nwalls.[776] Full families, unlike the present colony with its few\nchildren and its men worn out in middle life by harassing warfare with\nenemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children playing and\nold folk sitting in the sun; the return of the exiles; happy harvests\nand springtimes of peace; solid gain of labour for every man, with no\nraiding neighbours to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants in\ntheir selfish struggle with famine.\n\nIt is a simple, hearty, practical man whom such prophesying reveals,\nthe spirit of him bent on justice and love, and yearning for the\nunharassed labour of the field and for happy homes. No prophet has more\nbeautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, or a braver\nheart. _Fast not, but love truth and peace. Truth and wholesome justice\nset ye up in your gates. Be not afraid; strengthen your hands! Old men\nand women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in\nhand for the fulness of their years; the city\u2019s streets shall be rife\nwith boys and girls at play._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[757]\u200e \u05d6\u05b6\u05db\u05b6\u05e8\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4; LXX. \u0396\u03b1\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2.\n\n[758] i. 1: \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05d1\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05db\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4 \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05e2\u05b4\u05d3\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9. In i. 7: \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05e8\u05b6\u05db\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc\n\u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05e2\u05b4\u05d3\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05d0.\n\n[759] Ezra v. 1, vi. 14: \u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05e8\u05be\u05e2\u05b4\u05d3\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05d0.\n\n[760] Gen. xxiv. 47, cf. xxix. 5; 1 Kings xix. 16, cf. 2 Kings ix. 14,\n20.\n\n[761] Isa. viii. 2: \u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05d9\u05b0\u05d1\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05db\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc. This confusion, which existed\nin early Jewish and Christian times, Knobel, Von Ortenberg, Bleek,\nWellhausen and others take to be due to the effort to find a second\nZechariah for the authorship of chaps. ix. ff.\n\n[762] So Vatke, K\u00f6nig and many others. Marti prefers it (_Der Prophet\nSacharja_, p. 58). See also Ryle on Ezra v. 1.\n\n[763] Neh. xii. 4.\n\n[764] _Ib._ 16.\n\n[765] This is not proved, as Pusey, K\u00f6nig (_Einl._, p. 364) and others\nthink, by \u05e0\u05b7\u05e2\u05b7\u05e8, or young man, of the Third Vision (ii. 8 Heb., ii. 4\nLXX. and Eng.). Cf. Wright, _Zechariah and his Prophecies_, p. xvi.\n\n[766] v. 1, vi. 14.\n\n[767] Above, p. 260.\n\n[768] More than this we do not know of Zechariah. The Jewish and\nChristian traditions of him are as unfounded as those of other\nprophets. According to the Jews he was, of course, a member of the\nmythical Great Synagogue. See above on Haggai, pp. 232 f. As in the\ncase of the prophets we have already treated, the Christian traditions\nof Zechariah are found in (Pseud-)Epiphanius, _De Vitis Prophetarum_,\nDorotheus, and Hesychius, as quoted above, p. 80. They amount to this,\nthat Zechariah, after predicting in Babylon the birth of Zerubbabel,\nand to Cyrus his victory over Cr\u0153sus and his treatment of the Jews,\ncame in his old age to Jerusalem, prophesied, died and was buried near\nBeit-Jibrin\u2014another instance of the curious relegation by Christian\ntradition of the birth and burial places of so many of the prophets to\nthat neighbourhood. Compare Beit-Zakharya, 12 miles from Beit-Jibrin.\nHesychius says he was born in Gilead. Dorotheus confuses him, as the\nJews did, with Zechariah of Isa. viii. 1. See above, p. 265, n. 1.\n\nZechariah was certainly not the Zechariah whom our Lord describes as\nslain between the Temple and the Altar (Matt. xxiii. 35; Luke xi.\n51). In the former passage alone is this Zechariah called the son of\nBarachiah. In the _Evang. Nazar._ Jerome read _the son of Yehoyada_.\nBoth readings may be insertions. According to 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, in the\nreign of Joash, Zechariah, the son of Yehoyada the priest, was stoned\nin the court of the Temple, and according to Josephus (IV. _Wars_, v.\n4), in the year 68 A.D. Zechariah son of Baruch was assassinated in the\nTemple by two zealots. The latter murder may, as Marti remarks (pp. 58\nf.), have led to the insertion of Barachiah into Matt. xxiii. 35.\n\n[769] ii. 13, 15; iv. 9; vi. 15.\n\n[770] LXX. \u1f08\u03b4\u03b4\u03c9. See above, p. 264.\n\n[771] Heb. _angered with anger_; Gr. _with great anger_.\n\n[772] As in LXX.\n\n[773] LXX. has misunderstood and expanded this verse.\n\n[774] It is to be noticed that Zechariah appeals to the Torah of the\nprophets, and does not mention any Torah of the priests. Cf. Smend, _A.\nT. Rel. Gesch._, pp. 176 f.\n\n[775] Page 267, n. 769.\n\n[776] This picture is given in one of the Visions: the Third.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXI\n\n _THE VISIONS OF ZECHARIAH_\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 7\u2014vi.\n\n\nThe Visions of Zechariah do not lack those large and simple views\nof religion which we have just seen to be the charm of his other\nprophecies. Indeed it is among the Visions that we find the most\nspiritual of all his utterances:[777] _Not by might, and not by force,\nbut by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of Hosts_. The Visions express the need\nof the Divine forgiveness, emphasise the reality of sin, as a principle\ndeeper than the civic crimes in which it is manifested, and declare the\npower of God to banish it from His people. The Visions also contain\nthe remarkable prospect of Jerusalem as the City of Peace, her only\nwall the Lord Himself.[778] The overthrow of the heathen empires is\npredicted by the Lord\u2019s own hand, and from all the Visions there are\nabsent both the turmoil and the glory of war.\n\nWe must also be struck by the absence of another element, which is a\ncause of complexity in the writings of many prophets\u2014the polemic\nagainst idolatry. Zechariah nowhere mentions the idols. We have already\nseen what proof this silence bears for the fact that the community to\nwhich he spoke was not that half-heathen remnant of Israel which had\nremained in the land, but was composed of worshippers of Jehovah who at\nHis word had returned from Babylon.[779] Here we have only to do with\nthe bearing of the fact upon Zechariah\u2019s style. That bewildering\nconfusion of the heathen pantheon and its rites, which forms so much of\nour difficulty in interpreting some of the prophecies of Ezekiel and\nthe closing chapters of the Book of Isaiah, is not to blame for any of\nthe complexity of Zechariah\u2019s Visions.\n\nNor can we attribute the latter to the fact that the Visions are\ndreams, and therefore bound to be more involved and obscure than the\nwords of Jehovah which came to Zechariah in the open daylight of his\npeople\u2019s public life. In chaps. i. 7\u2014vi. we have not the narrative of\nactual dreams, but a series of conscious and artistic allegories\u2014the\ndeliberate translation into a carefully constructed symbolism of the\nDivine truths with which the prophet was entrusted by his God. Yet this\nonly increases our problem\u2014why a man with such gifts of direct speech,\nand such clear views of his people\u2019s character and history, should\nchoose to express the latter by an imagery so artificial and involved?\nIn his orations Zechariah is very like the prophets whom we have known\nbefore the Exile, thoroughly ethical and intent upon the public\nconscience of his time. He appreciates what they were, feels himself\nstanding in their succession, and is endowed both with their spirit and\ntheir style. But none of them constructs the elaborate allegories which\nhe does, or insists upon the religious symbolism which he enforces as\nindispensable to the standing of Israel with God. Not only are their\nvisions few and simple, but they look down upon the visionary temper as\na rude stage of prophecy and inferior to their own, in which the Word\nof God is received by personal communion with Himself, and conveyed to\nHis people by straight and plain words. Some of the earlier prophets\neven condemn all priesthood and ritual; none of them regards these as\nindispensable to Israel\u2019s right relations with Jehovah; and none\nemploys those superhuman mediators of the Divine truth, by whom\nZechariah is instructed in his Visions.\n\n\n 1. THE INFLUENCES WHICH MOULDED THE VISIONS.\n\nThe explanation of this change that has come over prophecy must be\nsought for in certain habits which the people formed in exile. During\nthe Exile several causes conspired to develop among Hebrew writers\nthe tempers both of symbolism and apocalypse. The chief of these was\ntheir separation from the realities of civic life, with the opportunity\ntheir political leisure afforded them of brooding and dreaming.\nFacts and Divine promises, which had previously to be dealt with\nby the conscience of the moment, were left to be worked out by the\nimagination. The exiles were not responsible citizens or statesmen,\nbut dreamers. They were inspired by mighty hopes for the future, and\nnot fettered by the practical necessities of a definite historical\nsituation upon which these hopes had to be immediately realised. They\nhad a far-off horizon to build upon, and they occupied the whole\nbreadth of it. They had a long time to build, and they elaborated the\nminutest details of their architecture. Consequently their construction\nof the future of Israel, and their description of the processes by\nwhich it was to be reached, became colossal, ornate and lavishly\nsymbolic. Nor could the exiles fail to receive stimulus for all this\nfrom the rich imagery of Babylonian art by which they were surrounded.\n\nUnder these influences there were three strong developments in Israel.\nOne was that development of Apocalypse the first beginnings of which we\ntraced in Zephaniah\u2014the representation of God\u2019s providence of the world\nand of His people, not by the ordinary political and military processes\nof history, but by awful convulsions and catastrophes, both in nature\nand in politics, in which God Himself appeared, either alone in sudden\nglory or by the mediation of heavenly armies. The second\u2014and it was but\na part of the first\u2014was the development of a belief in Angels:\nsuperhuman beings who had not only a part to play in the apocalyptic\nwars and revolutions; but, in the growing sense, which characterises\nthe period, of God\u2019s distance and awfulness, were believed to act as\nHis agents in the communication of His Word to men. And, thirdly, there\nwas the development of the Ritual. To some minds this may appear the\nstrangest of all the effects of the Exile. The fall of the Temple, its\nhierarchy and sacrifices, might be supposed to enforce more spiritual\nconceptions of God and of His communion with His people. And no doubt\nit did. The impossibility of the legal sacrifices in exile opened the\nmind of Israel to the belief that God was satisfied with the sacrifices\nof the broken heart, and drew near, without mediation, to all who were\nhumble and pure of heart. But no one in Israel therefore understood\nthat these sacrifices were for ever abolished. Their interruption was\nregarded as merely temporary even by the most spiritual of Jewish\nwriters. The Fifty-First Psalm, for instance, which declares that _the\nsacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O\nLord, Thou wilt not despise_, immediately follows this declaration by\nthe assurance that _when God builds again the walls of Jerusalem_, He\nwill once more take delight in _the legal sacrifices: burnt offering\nand whole burnt offering, the oblation of bullocks upon Thine\naltar_.[780] For men of such views the ruin of the Temple was not its\nabolition with the whole dispensation which it represented, but rather\nthe occasion for its reconstruction upon wider lines and a more\ndetailed system, for the planning of which the nation\u2019s exile afforded\nthe leisure and the carefulness of art described above. The ancient\nliturgy, too, was insufficient for the stronger convictions of guilt\nand need of purgation, which sore punishment had impressed upon the\npeople. Then, scattered among the heathen as they were, they learned to\nrequire stricter laws and more drastic ceremonies to restore and\npreserve their holiness. Their ritual, therefore, had to be expanded\nand detailed to a degree far beyond what we find in Israel\u2019s earlier\nsystems of worship. With the fall of the monarchy and the absence of\ncivic life the importance of the priesthood was proportionately\nenhanced; and the growing sense of God\u2019s aloofness from the world,\nalready alluded to, made the more indispensable human, as well as\nsuperhuman, mediators between Himself and His people. Consider these\nthings, and it will be clear why prophecy, which with Amos had begun a\nwar against all ritual, and with Jeremiah had achieved a religion\nabsolutely independent of priesthood and Temple, should reappear after\nthe Exile, insistent upon the building of the Temple, enforcing the\nneed both of priesthood and sacrifice, and while it proclaimed the\nMessianic King and the High Priest as the great feeders of the national\nlife and worship, finding no place beside them for the Prophet\nhimself.[781]\n\nThe force of these developments of Apocalypse, Angelology and the\nRitual appears both in Ezekiel and in the exilic codification of the\nritual which forms so large a part of the Pentateuch. Ezekiel carries\nApocalypse far beyond the beginnings started by Zephaniah. He\nintroduces, though not under the name of angels, superhuman mediators\nbetween himself and God. The Priestly Code does not mention angels, and\nhas no Apocalypse; but like Ezekiel it develops, to an extraordinary\ndegree, the ritual of Israel. Both its author and Ezekiel base on the\nolder forms, but build as men who are not confined by the lines of an\nactually existing system. The changes they make, the innovations they\nintroduce, are too numerous to mention here. To illustrate their\ninfluence upon Zechariah, it is enough to emphasise the large place\nthey give in the ritual to the processes of propitiation and cleansing\nfrom sin, and the increased authority with which they invest the\npriesthood. In Ezekiel Israel has still a Prince, though he is not\ncalled King. He arranges the cultus,[782] and sacrifices are offered\nfor him and the people,[783] but the priests teach and judge the\npeople.[784] In the Priestly Code[785] the priesthood is more\nrigorously fenced than by Ezekiel from the laity, and more regularly\ngraded. At its head appears a High Priest (as he does not in Ezekiel),\nand by his side the civil rulers are portrayed in lesser dignity and\npower. Sacrifices are made, no longer as with Ezekiel for Prince and\nPeople, but for Aaron and the Congregation; and throughout the\nnarrative of ancient history, into the form of which this Code projects\nits legislation, the High Priest stands above the captain of the host,\neven when the latter is Joshua himself. God\u2019s enemies are defeated not\nso much by the wisdom and valour of the secular powers, as by the\nmiracles of Jehovah Himself, mediated through the priesthood. Ezekiel\nand the Priestly Code both elaborate the sacrifices of atonement and\nsanctification beyond all the earlier uses.\n\n\n 2. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE VISIONS.\n\nIt was beneath these influences that Zechariah grew up, and to them we\nmay trace, not only numerous details of his Visions, but the whole of\ntheir involved symbolism. He was himself a priest and the son of a\npriest, born and bred in the very order to which we owe the\ncodification of the ritual, and the development of those ideas of guilt\nand uncleanness that led to its expansion and specialisation. The\nVisions in which he deals with these are the Third to the Seventh. As\nwith Haggai there is a High Priest, in advance upon Ezekiel and in\nagreement with the Priestly Code. As in the latter the High Priest\nrepresents the people, and carries their guilt before God.[786] He and\nhis colleagues are pledges and portents of the coming Messiah. But the\ncivil power is not yet diminished before the sacerdotal, as in the\nPriestly Code. We shall find indeed that a remarkable attempt has been\nmade to alter the original text of a prophecy appended to the\nVisions,[787] in order to divert to the High Priest the coronation and\nMessianic rank there described. But any one who reads the passage\ncarefully can see for himself that the crown (a single crown, as the\nverb which it governs proves[788]) which Zechariah was ordered to make\nwas designed for Another than the priest, that the priest was but to\nstand at this Other\u2019s right hand, and that there was to be concord\nbetween the two of them. This Other can only have been the Messianic\nKing, Zerubbabel, as was already proclaimed by Haggai.[789] The altered\ntext is due to a later period, when the High Priest became the civil as\nwell as the religious head of the community. To Zechariah he was still\nonly the right hand of the monarch in government; but, as we have seen,\nthe religious life of the people was already gathered up and\nconcentrated in him. It is the priests, too, who by their perpetual\nservice and holy life bring on the Messianic era.[790] Men come to the\nTemple to propitiate Jehovah, for which Zechariah uses the\nanthropomorphic expression _to make smooth_ or _placid His face_.[791]\nNo more than this is made of the sacrificial system, which was not in\nfull course when the Visions were announced. But the symbolism of the\nFourth Vision is drawn from the furniture of the Temple. It is\ninteresting that the great candelabrum seen by the prophet should be\nlike, not the ten lights of the old Temple of Solomon, but the\nseven-branched candlestick described in the Priestly Code. In the Sixth\nand Seventh Visions, the strong convictions of guilt and uncleanness,\nwhich were engendered in Israel by the Exile, are not removed by the\nsacrificial means enforced in the Priestly Code, but by symbolic\nprocesses in the style of the visions of Ezekiel.\n\nThe Visions in which Zechariah treats of the outer history of the world\nare the first two and the last, and in these we notice the influence of\nthe Apocalypse developed during the Exile. In Zechariah\u2019s day Israel\nhad no stage for their history save the site of Jerusalem and its\nimmediate neighbourhood. So long as he keeps to this Zechariah is as\npractical and matter-of-fact as any of the prophets, but when he has to\ngo beyond it to describe the general overthrow of the heathen, he is\nunable to project that, as Amos or Isaiah did, in terms of historic\nbattle, and has to call in the apocalyptic. A people such as that poor\ncolony of exiles, with no issue upon history, is forced to take refuge\nin Apocalypse, and carries with it even those of its prophets whose\nconscience, like Zechariah\u2019s, is most strongly bent upon the practical\npresent. Consequently these three historical Visions are the most vague\nof the eight. They reveal the whole earth under the care of Jehovah and\nthe patrol of His angels. They definitely predict the overthrow of the\nheathen empires. But, unlike Amos or Isaiah, the prophet does not see\nby what political movements this is to be effected. The world _is_\nstill _quiet and at peace_.[792] The time is hidden in the Divine\ncounsels; the means, though clearly symbolised in _four smiths_ who\ncome forward to smite the horns of the heathen,[793] and in a chariot\nwhich carries God\u2019s wrath to the North,[794] are obscure. The prophet\nappears to have intended, not any definite individuals or political\nmovements of the immediate future, but God\u2019s own supernatural forces.\nIn other words, the Smiths and Chariots are not an allegory of history,\nbut powers apocalyptic. The forms of the symbols were derived by\nZechariah from different sources. Perhaps that of the _smiths_ who\ndestroy the horns in the Second Vision was suggested by the _smiths of\ndestruction_ threatened upon Ammon by Ezekiel.[795] In the horsemen of\nthe First Vision and the chariots of the Eighth, Ewald sees a\nreflection of the couriers and posts which Darius organised throughout\nthe empire; they are more probably, as we shall see, a reflection of\nthe military bands and patrols of the Persians. But from whatever\nquarter Zechariah derived the exact aspect of these Divine messengers,\nhe found many precedents for them in the native beliefs of Israel. They\nare, in short, angels, incarnate as Hebrew angels always were, and in\nfashion like men. But this brings up the whole subject of the angels,\nwhom he also sees employed as the mediators of God\u2019s Word to him; and\nthat is large enough to be left to a chapter by itself.[796]\n\nWe have now before us all the influences which led Zechariah to the\nmain form and chief features of his Visions.\n\n\n 3. EXPOSITION OF THE SEVERAL VISIONS.\n\nFor all the Visions there is one date, _in the twenty-fourth day of the\neleventh month, the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius_, that\nis January or February 519; and one Divine impulse, _the Word of\nJehovah came to the prophet Zekharyah, son of Berekhyahu, son of Iddo,\nas follows_.\n\n\n THE FIRST VISION: THE ANGEL-HORSEMEN (i. 7-17).\n\nThe seventy years which Jeremiah had fixed for the duration of the\nBabylonian servitude were drawing to a close. Four months had elapsed\nsince Haggai promised that in a little while God would shake all\nnations.[797] But the world was not shaken: there was no political\nmovement which promised to restore her glory to Jerusalem. A very\nnatural disappointment must have been the result among the Jews.\nIn this situation of affairs the Word came to Zechariah, and both\nsituation and Word he expressed by his First Vision.\n\nIt was one of the myrtle-covered glens in the neighbourhood of\nJerusalem:[798] Zechariah calls it _the_ Glen or Valley-Bottom, either\nbecause it was known under that name to the Jews, or because he was\nhimself wont to frequent it for prayer. He discovers in it what seems\nto be a rendezvous of Persian cavalry-scouts,[799] the leader of the\ntroop in front, and the rest behind him, having just come in with their\nreports. Soon, however, he is made aware that they are angels, and with\nthat quick, dissolving change both of function and figure, which marks\nall angelic apparitions,[800] they explain to him their mission. Now it\nis an angel-interpreter at his side who speaks, and now the angel on\nthe front horse. They are scouts of God come in from their survey of\nthe whole earth. The world lies quiet. Whereupon _the angel of Jehovah_\nasks Him how long His anger must rest on Jerusalem and nothing be done\nto restore her; and the prophet hears a kind and comforting answer. The\nnations have done more evil to Israel than God empowered them to do.\nTheir aggravations have changed His wrath against her to pity, and in\npity He is come back to her. She shall soon be rebuilt and overflow\nwith prosperity. The only perplexity in all this is the angels\u2019 report\nthat the whole earth lies quiet. How this could have been in 519 is\ndifficult to understand. The great revolts against Darius were then in\nactive progress, the result was uncertain and he took at least three\nmore years to put them all down. They were confined, it is true, to the\neast and north-east of the empire, but some of them threatened Babylon,\nand we can hardly ascribe the report of the angels to such a limitation\nof the Jews\u2019 horizon at this time as shut out Mesopotamia or the lands\nto the north of her. There remain two alternatives. Either these\nfar-away revolts made only more impressive the stagnancy of the tribes\nof the rest of the empire, and the helplessness of the Jews and their\nSyrian neighbours was convincingly shown by their inability to take\nadvantage even of the desperate straits to which Darius was reduced; or\nelse in that month of vision Darius had quelled one of the rebellions\nagainst him, and for the moment there was quiet in the world.\n\n_By night I had a vision, and behold! a man riding a brown horse,[801]\nand he was standing between the myrtles that are in the Glen;[802] and\nbehind him horses brown, bay[803] and white. And I said, What are\nthese, my lord? And the angel who talked with me said, I will show you\nwhat these are. And the man who was standing among the myrtles answered\nand said, These are they whom Jehovah hath sent to go to and fro\nthrough the earth. And they answered the angel of Jehovah who stood\namong the myrtles,[804] and said, We have gone up and down through the\nearth, and lo! the whole earth is still and at peace.[805] And the\nangel of Jehovah answered and said, Jehovah of Hosts, how long hast\nThou no pity for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which[806]\nThou hast been wroth these seventy years? And Jehovah answered the\nangel who talked with me,[807] kind words and comforting. And the angel\nwho talked with me said to me, Proclaim now as follows: Thus saith\nJehovah of Hosts, I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion, with a great\nzeal; but with great wrath am I wroth against the arrogant Gentiles.\nFor I was but a little angry_ with Israel, _but they aggravated the\nevil.[808] Therefore thus saith Jehovah, I am returned to Jerusalem\nwith mercies. My house shall be built in her\u2014oracle of Jehovah of\nHosts\u2014and the measuring line shall be drawn over Jerusalem. Proclaim\nyet again, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, My cities shall yet\noverflow with prosperity, and Jehovah shall again comfort Zion, and\nagain make choice of Jerusalem._.\n\nTwo things are to be noted in this oracle. No political movement is\nindicated as the means of Jerusalem\u2019s restoration: this is to be the\neffect of God\u2019s free grace in returning to dwell in Jerusalem, which is\nthe reward of the building of the Temple. And there is an interesting\nexplanation of the motive for God\u2019s new grace: in executing His\nsentence upon Israel, the heathen had far exceeded their commission,\nand now themselves deserved punishment. That is to say, the restoration\nof Jerusalem and the resumption of the worship are not enough for the\nfuture of Israel. The heathen must be chastised. But Zechariah does not\npredict any overthrow of the world\u2019s power, either by earthly or by\nheavenly forces. This is entirely in harmony with the insistence upon\npeace which distinguishes him from other prophets.\n\n\n THE SECOND VISION: THE FOUR HORNS AND THE\n FOUR SMITHS (ii. 1-4 Heb., i. 18-21 Eng.).\n\nThe Second Vision supplies what is lacking in the First, the\ndestruction of the tyrants who have oppressed Israel. The prophet sees\nfour horns, which, he is told by his interpreting angel, are the powers\nthat have scattered Judah. The many attempts to identify these with\nfour heathen nations are ingenious but futile. \u201c_Four_ horns were seen\nas representing the totality of Israel\u2019s enemies\u2014her enemies from all\nquarters.\u201d[809] And to destroy these horns four smiths appear. Because\nin the Vision the horns are of iron, in Israel an old symbol of power,\nthe first verb used of the action can hardly be, as in the Hebrew text,\nto terrify. The Greek reads _sharpen_, and probably some verb meaning\n_to cut_ or _chisel_ stood in the original.[810]\n\n_And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! four horns. And I said to\nthe angel who spoke with me, What are these? And he said to me, These\nare the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.[811]\nAnd Jehovah showed me four smiths. And I said, What are these coming to\ndo? And He spake, saying, These are the horns which scattered Judah, so\nthat none lifted up his head;[812] and these are come to ...[813] them,\nto strike down the horns of the nations, that lifted the horn against\nthe land of Judah to scatter it._\n\n\n THE THIRD VISION: THE CITY OF PEACE (ii. 5-9 Heb., ii. 1-5 Eng.).\n\nLike the Second Vision, the Third follows from the First, another, but\na still more significant, supplement. The First had promised the\nrebuilding of Jerusalem, and now the prophet beholds _a young man_\u2014by\nthis term he probably means _a servant_ or _apprentice_\u2014who is\nattempting to define the limits of the new city. In the light of what\nthis attempt encounters, there can be little doubt that the prophet\nmeans to symbolise by it the intention of building the walls upon the\nold lines, so as to make Jerusalem again the mountain fortress she had\npreviously been. Some have considered that the young man goes forth\nonly to see, or to show, the extent of the city in the approaching\nfuture. But if this had been his motive, there would have been no\nreason in interrupting him with other orders. The point is, that he has\nnarrow ideas of what the city should be, and is prepared to define it\nupon its old lines of a fortress. For the interpreting angel who _comes\nforward_[814] is told by another angel to run and tell the young man\nthat in the future Jerusalem shall be a large unwalled town, and this,\nnot only because of the multitude of its population, for even then it\nmight still have been fortified like Niniveh, but because Jehovah\nHimself shall be its wall. The young man is prevented, not merely from\nmaking it small, but from making it a citadel. And this is in\nconformity with all the singular absence of war from Zechariah\u2019s\nVisions, both of the future deliverance of Jehovah\u2019s people and of\ntheir future duties before Him. It is indeed remarkable how Zechariah\nnot only develops none of the warlike elements of earlier Messianic\nprophecies, but tells us here of how God Himself actually prevented\ntheir repetition, and insists again and again only on those elements of\nancient prediction which had filled the future of Israel with peace.\n\n_And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! a man with a measuring rope\nin his hand. So I said, Whither art thou going? And he said to me, To\nmeasure Jerusalem: to see how much its breadth and how much its length\nshould be. And lo! the angel who talked with me came forward,[815] and\nanother angel came forward to meet him. And he said to him, Run and\nspeak to yonder young man thus:_ Like _a number of open villages shall\nJerusalem remain, because of the multitude of men and cattle in the\nmidst of her. And I Myself will be to her\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014a wall of\nfire round about, and for glory will I be in her midst._\n\nIn this Vision Zechariah gives us, with his prophecy, a lesson in the\ninterpretation of prophecy. His contemporaries believed God\u2019s promise\nto rebuild Jerusalem, but they defined its limits by the conditions of\nan older and a narrower day. They brought forth their measuring rods,\nto measure the future by the sacred attainments of the past. Such\nliteral fulfilment of His Word God prevented by that ministry of angels\nwhich Zechariah beheld. He would not be bound by those forms which His\nWord had assumed in suitableness to the needs of ruder generations. The\nideal of many of the returned exiles must have been that frowning\ncitadel, those gates of everlastingness,[816] which some of them\ncelebrated in Psalms, and from which the hosts of Sennacherib had been\nbroken and swept back as the angry sea is swept from the fixed line of\nCanaan\u2019s coast.[817] What had been enough for David and Isaiah was\nenough for them, especially as so many prophets of the Lord had\nforetold a Messianic Jerusalem that should be a counterpart of the\nhistorical. But God breaks the letter of His Word to give its spirit a\nmore glorious fulfilment. Jerusalem shall not _be builded as a city\nthat is compact together_,[818] but open and spread abroad village-wise\nupon her high mountains, and God Himself her only wall.\n\nThe interest of this Vision is therefore not only historical. For\nourselves it has an abiding doctrinal value. It is a lesson in the\nmethod of applying prophecy to the future. How much it is needed\nwe must feel as we remember the readiness of men among ourselves\nto construct the Church of God upon the lines His own hand drew\nfor our fathers, and to raise again the bulwarks behind which they\nsufficiently sheltered His shrine. Whether these ancient and sacred\ndefences be dogmas or institutions, we have no right, God tells us, to\ncramp behind them His powers for the future. And the great men whom\nHe raises to remind us of this, and to prevent by their ministry the\ntimid measurements of the zealous but servile spirits who would confine\neverything to the exact letter of ancient Scripture\u2014are they any less\nHis angels to us than those ministering spirits whom Zechariah beheld\npreventing the narrow measures of the poor apprentice of his dream?\n\nTo the Third Vision there has been appended the only lyrical piece\nwhich breaks the prose narrative of the Visions. We have already seen\nthat it is a piece of earlier date. Israel is addressed as still\nscattered to the four winds of heaven, and still inhabiting Babylon.\nWhile in Zechariah\u2019s own oracles and visions Jehovah has returned to\nJerusalem, His return according to this piece is still future. There\nis nothing about the Temple: God\u2019s holy dwelling from which He has\nroused Himself is Heaven. The piece was probably inserted by Zechariah\nhimself: its lines are broken by what seems to be a piece of prose,\nin which the prophet asserts his mission, in words he twice uses\nelsewhere. But this is uncertain.\n\n _Ho, ho! Flee from the Land of the North (oracle of Jehovah);\n For as the four winds have I spread you abroad[819] (oracle\n of Jehovah).\n Ho! to Zion escape, thou inhabitress of Babel._[820]\n\n_For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts[821] to the nations that plunder you\n(for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye), that, lo! I\nam about to wave My hand over them, and they shall be plunder to their\nown servants, and ye shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me._\n\n _Sing out and rejoice, O daughter of Zion;\n For, lo! I come, and will dwell in thy midst (oracle\n of Jehovah).\n And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah in that day,\n And shall be to Him[822] a people.\n And I will dwell in thy midst\n (And thou shalt know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me to thee).\n And Jehovah will make Judah His heritage,\n His portion shall be upon holy soil,\n And make choice once more of Jerusalem.\n Silence, all flesh, before Jehovah;[823]\n For He hath roused Himself up from His holy dwelling._\n\n\n THE FOURTH VISION: THE HIGH PRIEST AND THE\n SATAN (Chap. iii.).\n\nThe next Visions deal with the moral condition of Israel and their\nstanding before God. The Fourth is a judgment scene. The Angel of\nJehovah, who is not to be distinguished from Jehovah Himself,[824]\nstands for judgment, and there appear before him Joshua the High Priest\nand the Satan or Adversary who has come to accuse him. Now those who\nare accused by the Satan\u2014see next chapter of this volume upon the\nAngels of the Visions\u2014are, according to Jewish belief, those who have\nbeen overtaken by misfortune. The people who are standing at God\u2019s bar\nin the person of their High Priest still suffer from the adversity in\nwhich Haggai found them, and the continuance of which so disheartened\nthem after the Temple had begun. The evil seasons and poor harvests\ntormented their hearts with the thought that the Satan still slandered\nthem in the court of God. But Zechariah comforts them with the vision\nof the Satan rebuked. Israel has indeed been sorely beset by calamity,\na brand much burned, but now of God\u2019s grace plucked from the fire. The\nSatan\u2019s role is closed, and he disappears from the Vision.[825] Yet\nsomething remains: Israel is rescued, but not sanctified. The nation\u2019s\ntroubles are over: their uncleanness has still to be removed. Zechariah\nsees that the High Priest is clothed in filthy garments, while he\nstands before the Angel of Judgment. The Angel orders his servants,\nthose _that stand before him_,[826] to give him clean festal robes. And\nthe prophet, breaking out in sympathy with what he sees, for the first\ntime takes part in the Visions. _Then I said, Let them also put a clean\nturban on his head_\u2014the turban being the headdress, in Ezekiel of the\nPrince of Israel, and in the Priestly Code of the High Priest.[827]\nThis is done, and the national effect of his cleansing is explained to\nthe High Priest. If he remains loyal to the law of Jehovah, he, the\nrepresentative of Israel, shall have right of entry to Jehovah\u2019s\npresence among the angels who stand there. But more, he and his\ncolleagues the priests are a portent of the coming of the Messiah\u2014_the\nServant of Jehovah, the Branch_, as he has been called by many\nprophets.[828] A stone has already been set before Joshua, with seven\neyes upon it. God will engrave it with inscriptions, and on the same\nday take away the guilt of the land. Then shall be the peace upon which\nZechariah loves to dwell.\n\n_And he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the Angel of\nJehovah, and the Satan[829] standing at his right hand to accuse\nhim.[830] And Jehovah[831] said to the Satan: Jehovah rebuke thee, O\nSatan! Jehovah who makes choice of Jerusalem rebuke thee! Is not this a\nbrand saved from the fire? But Joshua was clothed in foul garments\nwhile he stood before the Angel. And he_\u2014the Angel\u2014_answered and said\nto those who stood in his presence, Take the foul garments from off him\n(and he said to him, See, I have made thy guilt to pass away from\nthee),[832] and clothe him[833] in fresh clothing. And I said,[834] Let\nthem put a clean turban[835] on his head. And they put the clean turban\nupon his head, and clothed him with garments, the Angel of Jehovah\nstanding up_ the while.[836] _And the Angel of Jehovah certified unto\nJoshua, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, If in My ways thou\nwalkest, and if My charges thou keepest in charge, then thou also shall\njudge My house, and have charge of My courts, and I will give thee\nentry[837] among these who stand in My presence. Hearken now, O Joshua,\nhigh priest, thou and thy fellows who sit before thee are men of omen,\nthat, lo! I am about to bring My servant, Branch. For see the stone\nwhich I have set before Joshua, one stone with seven eyes.[838] Lo, I\nwill etch the engraving upon it (oracle of Jehovah), and I will wash\naway the guilt of that land in one day. In that day (oracle of Jehovah\nof Hosts) ye will invite one another in under vine and under fig-tree._\n\nThe theological significance of the Vision is as clear as its\nconsequences in the subsequent theology and symbolism of Judaism. The\nuncleanness of Israel which infests their representative before God is\nnot defined. Some[839] hold that it includes the guilt of Israel\u2019s\nidolatry. But they have to go back to Ezekiel for this, and we have\nseen that Zechariah nowhere mentions or feels the presence of idols\namong his people. The Vision itself supplies a better explanation.\nJoshua\u2019s filthy garments are replaced by festal and official robes. He\nis warned to walk in the whole law of the Lord, ruling the Temple and\nguarding Jehovah\u2019s court. The uncleanness was the opposite of all this.\nIt was not ethical failure: covetousness, greed, immorality. It was, as\nHaggai protested, the neglect of the Temple, and of the whole worship\nof Jehovah. If this be now removed, in all fidelity to the law, the\nHigh Priest shall have access to God, and the Messiah will come. The\nHigh Priest himself shall not be the Messiah\u2014this dogma is left to a\nlater age to frame. But before God he will be as one of the angels, and\nhimself and his faithful priesthood omens of the Messiah. We need not\nlinger on the significance of this for the place of the priesthood in\nlater Judaism. Note how the High Priest is already the religious\nrepresentative of his people: their uncleanness is his; when he is\npardoned and cleansed, _the uncleanness of the land_ is purged away. In\nsuch a High Priest Christian theology has seen the prototype of Christ.\n\nThe stone is very difficult to explain. Some have thought of it as the\nfoundation-stone of the Temple, which had already been employed as a\nsymbol of the Messiah and which played so important a part in later\nJewish symbolism.[840] Others prefer the top-stone of the Temple,\nmentioned in chap. iv. 7,[841] and others an altar or substitute for\nthe ark.[842] Again, some take it to be a jewel, either on the\nbreastplate of the High Priest,[843] or upon the crown afterwards\nprepared for Zerubbabel.[844] To all of these there are objections. It\nis difficult to connect with the foundation-stone an engraving still to\nbe made; neither the top-stone of the Temple, nor a jewel on the\nbreastplate of the priest, nor a jewel on the king\u2019s crown, could\nproperly be said to be set _before_ the High Priest. We must rather\nsuppose that the stone is symbolic of the finished Temple.[845] The\nTemple is the full expression of God\u2019s providence and care\u2014His _seven\neyes_. Upon it shall His will be engraved, and by its sacrifices the\nuncleanness of the land shall be taken away.\n\n\n THE FIFTH VISION: THE TEMPLE CANDLESTICK AND\n THE TWO OLIVE-TREES (Chap. iv.).\n\nAs the Fourth Vision unfolded the dignity and significance of the High\n Priest, so in the Fifth we find discovered the joint glory of himself\n and Zerubbabel, the civil head of Israel. And to this is appended a\n Word for Zerubbabel himself. In our present text this Word has become\n inserted in the middle of the Vision, vv. 6_b_-10_a_; in the\n translation which follows it has been removed to the end of the\n Vision, and the reasons for this will be found in the notes.\n\n The Vision is of the great golden lamp which stood in the Temple. In\nthe former Temple, light was supplied by ten several candlesticks.[846]\nBut the Levitical Code ordained one seven-branched lamp, and such\nappears to have stood in the Temple built while Zechariah was\nprophesying.[847] The lamp Zechariah sees has also seven branches, but\ndiffers in other respects, and especially in some curious fantastic\ndetails only possible in dream and symbol. Its seven lights were fed by\nseven pipes from a bowl or reservoir of oil which stood higher than\nthemselves, and this was fed, either directly from two olive-trees\nwhich stood to the right and left of it, or, if ver. 12 be genuine, by\ntwo tubes which brought the oil from the trees. The seven lights are\nthe seven eyes of Jehovah\u2014if, as we ought, we run the second half of\nver. 10 on to the first half of ver. 6. The pipes and reservoir are\ngiven no symbolic force; but the olive-trees which feed them are called\n_the two sons of oil which stand before the Lord of all the earth_.\nThese can only be the two anointed heads of the community\u2014Zerubbabel,\nthe civil head, and Joshua, the religious head. Theirs was the equal\nand co-ordinate duty of sustaining the Temple, figured by the whole\ncandelabrum, and ensuring the brightness of the sevenfold revelation.\nThe Temple, that is to say, is nothing without the monarchy and the\npriesthood behind it; and these stand in the immediate presence of God.\nTherefore this Vision, which to the superficial eye might seem to be a\nglorification of the mere machinery of the Temple and its ritual, is\nrather to prove that the latter derive all their power from the\nnational institutions which are behind them, from the two\nrepresentatives of the people who in their turn stand before God\nHimself. The Temple so near completion will not of itself reveal God:\nlet not the Jews put their trust in it, but in the life behind it. And\nfor ourselves the lesson of the Vision is that which Christian theology\nhas been so slow to learn, that God\u2019s revelation under the old covenant\nshone not directly through the material framework, but was mediated by\nthe national life, whose chief men stood and grew fruitful in His\npresence.\n\nOne thing is very remarkable. The two sources of revelation are the\nKing and the Priest. The Prophet is not mentioned beside them. Nothing\ncould prove more emphatically the sense in Israel that prophecy was\nexhausted.\n\nThe appointment of so responsible a position for Zerubbabel demanded\nfor him a special promise of grace. And therefore, as Joshua had his\npromise in the Fourth Vision, we find Zerubbabel\u2019s appended to the\nFifth. It is one of the great sayings of the Old Testament: there is\nnone more spiritual and more comforting. Zerubbabel shall complete the\nTemple, and those who scoffed at its small beginnings in the day of\nsmall things shall frankly rejoice when they see him set the top-stone\nby plummet in its place. As the moral obstacles to the future were\nremoved in the Fourth Vision by the vindication of Joshua and by his\ncleansing, so the political obstacles, all the hindrances described by\nthe Book of Ezra in the building of the Temple, shall disappear.\n_Before Zerubbabel the great mountain shall become a plain._ And this,\nbecause he shall not work by his own strength, but the Spirit of\nJehovah of Hosts shall do everything. Again we find that absence of\nexpectation in human means, and that full trust in God\u2019s own direct\naction, which characterise all the prophesying of Zechariah.\n\n_Then the angel who talked with me returned and roused me like a man\nroused out of his sleep. And he said to me, What seest thou? And I\nsaid, I see, and lo! a candlestick all of gold, and its bowl upon the\ntop of it, and its seven lamps on it, and seven[848] pipes to the lamps\nwhich are upon it. And two olive-trees stood over against it, one on\nthe right of the bowl,[849] and one on the left. And I began[850] and\nsaid to the angel who talked with me,[851] What be these, my lord? And\nthe angel who talked with me answered and said, Knowest thou not what\nthese be? And I said, No, my lord! And he answered and said to me,[852]\nThese seven are the eyes of Jehovah, which sweep through the whole\nearth. And I asked and said to him, What are these two olive-trees on\nthe right of the candlestick and on its left? And again I asked and\nsaid to him, What are the two olive-branches which are beside the two\ngolden tubes that pour forth the oil[853] from them?[854] And he said\nto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord! And he\nsaid, These are the two sons of oil which stand before the Lord of all\nthe earth._\n\n_This is Jehovah\u2019s Word to Zerubbabel, and it says:[855] Not by might,\nand not by force, but by My Spirit, saith Jehovah of Hosts. What art\nthou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel be thou level! And he[856]\nshall bring forth the top-stone with shoutings, Grace, grace to\nit![857] And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying, The hands of\nZerubbabel have founded this house, and his hands shall complete it,\nand thou shall know that Jehovah of Hosts hath sent me to you. For\nwhoever hath despised the day of small things, they shall rejoice when\nthey see the plummet[858] in the hand of Zerubbabel._\n\n\n THE SIXTH VISION: THE WINGED VOLUME (Chap. v. 1-4).\n\nThe religious and political obstacles being now removed from the future\nof Israel, Zechariah in the next two Visions beholds the land purged of\nits crime and wickedness. These Visions are very simple, if somewhat\nafter the ponderous fashion of Ezekiel.\n\nThe first of them is the Vision of the removal of the curse brought\nupon the land by its civic criminals, especially thieves and\nperjurers\u2014the two forms which crime takes in a poor and rude community\nlike the colony of the returned exiles. The prophet tells us he beheld\na roll flying. He uses the ordinary Hebrew name for the rolls of skin\nor parchment upon which writing was set down. But the proportions of\nits colossal size\u2014twenty cubits by ten\u2014prove that it was not a\ncylindrical but an oblong shape which he saw. It consisted, therefore,\nof sheets laid on each other like our books, and as our word \u201cvolume,\u201d\nwhich originally meant, like his own term, a roll, means now an oblong\narticle, we may use this in our translation. The volume is the record\nof the crime of the land, and Zechariah sees it flying from the land.\nBut it is also the curse upon this crime, and so again he beholds it\nentering every thief\u2019s and perjurer\u2019s house and destroying it. Smend\ngives a possible explanation of this: \u201cIt appears that in ancient times\ncurses were written on pieces of paper and sent down the wind into the\nhouses\u201d[859] of those against whom they were directed. But the figure\nseems rather to be of birds of prey.\n\n_And I turned and lifted my eyes and looked, and lo! a volume[860]\nflying. And he said unto me, What dost thou see? And I said, I see a\nvolume flying, its length twenty cubits and its breadth ten. And he\nsaid unto me, This is the curse that is going out upon the face of all\nthe land. For every thief is hereby purged away from hence,[861] and\nevery perjurer is hereby purged away from hence. I have sent it\nforth\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts\u2014and it shall enter the thief\u2019s house,\nand the house of him that hath sworn falsely by My name, and it shall\nroost[862] in the midst of his house and consume it, with its beams and\nits stones._[863]\n\n\n THE SEVENTH VISION: THE WOMAN IN THE BARREL\n (Chap. v. 5-11).\n\nIt is not enough that the curse fly from the land after destroying\nevery criminal. The living principle of sin, the power of temptation,\nmust be covered up and removed. This is the subject of the Seventh\nVision.\n\nThe prophet sees an ephah, the largest vessel in use among the Jews,\nof more than seven gallons capacity, and round[864] like a barrel.\nPresently the leaden top is lifted, and the prophet sees a woman\ninside. This is Wickedness, feminine because she figures the power\nof temptation. She is thrust back into the barrel, the leaden lid is\npushed down, and the whole carried off by two other female figures,\nwinged like the strong, far-flying stork, into the land of Shin\u2018ar,\n\u201cwhich at that time had the general significance of the counterpart of\nthe Holy Land,\u201d[865] and was the proper home of all that was evil.\n\n_And the angel of Jehovah who spake with me came forward[866] and said\nto me, Lift now thine eyes and see what this is that comes forth. And I\nsaid, What is it? And he said, This is a bushel coming forth. And he\nsaid, This is their transgression[867] in all the land.[868] And\nbehold! the round leaden _top_ was lifted up, and lo![869] a woman\nsitting inside the bushel. And he said, This is the Wickedness, and he\nthrust her back into the bushel, and thrust the leaden disc upon the\nmouth of it. And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! two women came\nforth with the wind in their wings, for they had wings like storks\u2019\nwings, and they bore the bushel betwixt earth and heaven. And I said to\nthe angel that talked with me, Whither do they carry the bushel? And he\nsaid to me, To build it a house in the land of Shin\u2018ar, that it may be\nfixed and brought to rest there on a place of its own._[870]\n\nWe must not allow this curious imagery to hide from us its very\nspiritual teaching. If Zechariah is weighted in these Visions by the\nponderous fashion of Ezekiel, he has also that prophet\u2019s truly moral\nspirit. He is not contented with the ritual atonement for sin, nor with\nthe legal punishment of crime. The living power of sin must be banished\nfrom Israel; and this cannot be done by any efforts of men themselves,\nbut by God\u2019s action only, which is thorough and effectual. If the\nfigures by which this is illustrated appear to us grotesque and heavy,\nlet us remember how they would suit the imagination of the prophet\u2019s\nown day. Let us lay to heart their eternally valid doctrine, that sin\nis not a formal curse, nor only expressed in certain social crimes, nor\nexhausted by the punishment of these, but, as a power of attraction and\ntemptation to all men, it must be banished from the heart, and can be\nbanished only by God.\n\n\n THE EIGHTH VISION: THE CHARIOTS OF THE FOUR WINDS\n (Chap. vi. 1-8).\n\nAs the series of Visions opened with one of the universal providence\nof God, so they close with another of the same. The First Vision had\npostponed God\u2019s overthrow of the nations till His own time, and this\nthe Last Vision now describes as begun, the religious and moral needs\nof Israel having meanwhile been met by the Visions which come between,\nand every obstacle to God\u2019s action for the deliverance of His people\nbeing removed.\n\nThe prophet sees four chariots, with horses of different colour in\neach, coming out from between two mountains of brass. The horsemen of\nthe First Vision were bringing in reports: these chariots are coming\nforth with their commissions from the presence of the Lord of all the\nearth. They are the four winds of heaven, servants of Him who maketh\nthe winds His angels. They are destined for different quarters of the\nworld. The prophet has not been admitted to the Presence, and does not\nknow what exactly they have been commissioned to do; that is to say,\nZechariah is ignorant of the actual political processes by which the\nnations are to be overthrown and Israel glorified before them. But his\nAngel-interpreter tells him that the black horses go north, the white\nwest, and the dappled south, while the horses of the fourth chariot,\nimpatient because no direction is assigned to them, are ordered to roam\nup and down through the earth. It is striking that none are sent\neastward.[871] This appears to mean that, in Zechariah\u2019s day, no power\noppressed or threatened Israel from that direction; but in the north\nthere was the centre of the Persian Empire, to the south Egypt, still a\npossible master of the world, and to the west the new forces of Europe\nthat in less than a generation were to prove themselves a match for\nPersia. The horses of the fourth chariot are therefore given the charge\nto exercise supervision upon the whole earth\u2014unless in ver. 7 we should\ntranslate, not _earth_, but _land_, and understand a commission to\npatrol the land of Israel. The centre of the world\u2019s power is in the\nnorth, and therefore the black horses, which are dispatched in that\ndirection, are explicitly described as charged to bring God\u2019s spirit,\nthat is His anger or His power, to bear on that quarter of the world.\n\n_And once more[872] I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! four\nchariots coming forward from between two mountains, and the mountains\nwere mountains of brass. In the first chariot were brown horses, and in\nthe second chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white horses,\nand in the fourth chariot dappled ...[873] horses. And I broke in and\nsaid to the angel who talked with me, What are these, my lord? And the\nangel answered and said to me, These be the four winds of heaven that\ncome forth from presenting themselves before the Lord of all the\nearth._[874] That _with the black horses goes forth to the land of the\nnorth, while the white go out west_[875] (?), _and the dappled go to\nthe land of the south. And the ...[876] go forth and seek to go, to\nmarch up and down on the earth. And he said, Go, march up and down on\nthe earth; and they marched up and down on the earth. And he called me\nand spake to me, saying, See they that go forth to the land of the\nnorth have brought my spirit to bear[877] on the land of the north._\n\n\n THE RESULT OF THE VISIONS: THE CROWNING OF THE\n KING OF ISRAEL (Chap. vi. 9-15).\n\nThe heathen being overthrown, Israel is free, and may have her king\nagain. Therefore Zechariah is ordered\u2014it would appear on the same day\nas that on which he received the Visions\u2014to visit a certain deputation\nfrom the captivity in Babylon, Heldai, Tobiyah and Yedayah, at the\nhouse of Josiah the son of Zephaniah, where they have just arrived; and\nto select from the gifts they have brought enough silver and gold to\nmake circlets for a crown. The present text assigns this crown to\nJoshua, the high priest, but as we have already remarked, and will\npresently prove in the notes to the translation, the original text\nassigned it to Zerubbabel, the civil head of the community, and gave\nJoshua, the priest, a place at his right hand\u2014the two to act in perfect\nconcord with each other. The text has suffered some other injuries,\nwhich it is easy to amend; and the end of it has been broken off in the\nmiddle of a sentence.\n\n_And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying: Take from the G\u00f4lah,[878]\nfrom Heldai[879] and from Tobiyah and from Yeda\u201byah; and do thou go on\nthe same day, yea, go thou to the house of Yosiyahu, son of \u1e62ephanyah,\nwhither they have arrived from Babylon.[880] And thou shall take silver\nand gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of....[881] And say\nto him: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Lo! a man called Branch; from his\nroots shall a branch come, and he shall build the Temple of Jehovah.\nYea, he shall build Jehovah\u2019s Temple,[882] and he shall wear the royal\nmajesty and sit and rule upon his throne, and Joshua[883] shall be\npriest on his right hand,[884] and there will be a counsel of peace\nbetween the two of them.[885] And the crown shall be for Heldai[886]\nand Tobiyah and Yeda\u201byah, and for the courtesy[887] of the son of\n\u1e62ephanyah, for a memorial in the Temple of Jehovah. And the far-away\nshall come and build at the Temple of Jehovah, and ye shall know that\nJehovah of Hosts hath sent me to you; and it shall be if ye hearken lo\nthe voice of Jehovah your God...._[888]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[777] iv. 6. Unless this be taken as an earlier prophecy. See above, p.\n260.\n\n[778] ii. 9, 10 Heb., 5, 6 LXX. and Eng.\n\n[779] See above, p. 214, where this is stated as an argument against\nKosters\u2019 theory that there was no Return from Babylon in the reign of\nCyrus.\n\n[780] Vv. 17 and 19.\n\n[781] See Zechariah\u2019s Fifth Vision.\n\n[782] xliv. 1 ff.\n\n[783] xlv. 22.\n\n[784] xliv. 23, 24.\n\n[785] Its origin was the Exile, whether its date be before or after the\nFirst Return under Cyrus in 537 B.C.\n\n[786] Fourth Vision, chap. iii.\n\n[787] vi. 9-15.\n\n[788] See ver. 11.\n\n[789] ii. 20-23.\n\n[790] iii. 8.\n\n[791]\u200e \u05d7\u05b4\u05dc\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4. The verb (Piel) originally means _to make\nweak_ or _flaccid_ (the Kal means _to be sick_), and so _to soften_ or\n_weaken by flattery_. 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.\n\n[792] First Vision, chap. i. 11.\n\n[793] Second Vision, ii. 1-4 Heb., i. 18-21 LXX. and Eng.\n\n[794] Eighth Vision, chap. vi. 1-8.\n\n[795] xxi. 36 Heb., 31 Eng.: _skilful to destroy_.\n\n[796] See next chapter.\n\n[797] Jer. xxv. 12; Hag. ii. 7.\n\n[798] Myrtles were once common in the Holy Land, and have been recently\nfound (Hasselquist, _Travels_). For their prevalence near Jerusalem see\nNeh. viii. 15. They do not appear to have any symbolic value in the\nVision.\n\n[799] For a less probable explanation see above, p. 282.\n\n[800] See pp. 311, 313, etc.\n\n[801] Ewald omits _riding a brown horse_, as \u201cmarring the lucidity of\nthe description, and added from a misconception by an early hand.\u201d But\nwe must not expect lucidity in a phantasmagoria like this.\n\n[802]\u200e \u05de\u05b0\u05e6\u05bb\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4, Me\u1e63ullah, either _shadow_ from \u05e6\u05dc\u05dc, or for \u05de\u05b0\u05e6\u05d5\u05bc\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4,\n_ravine_, or else a proper name. The LXX., which uniformly for\n\u05d4\u05b2\u05d3\u05b7\u05e1\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05dd, _myrtles_, reads \u05d4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd, _mountains_, renders \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05d1\u05de\u05e6\u05dc\u05d4 by \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03af\u03c9\u03bd. Ewald and Hitzig read \u05de\u05b0\u05e6\u05b4\u05dc\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4, Arab, mizhallah, _shadowing_\nor _tent_.\n\n[803] Heb. \u05e9\u05e8\u05e7\u05d9\u05dd, only here. For this LXX. gives two kinds, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c8\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u1f76\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, _and dappled and piebald_. Wright gives a full treatment\nof the question, pp. 531 ff. He points out that the cognate word in\nArabic means sorrel, or yellowish red.\n\n[804] _Who stood among the myrtles_ omitted by Nowack.\n\n[805] Isa. xxxvii. 29; Jer. xlviii. 11; Psalm cxxiii. 4; Zeph. i. 12.\n\n[806] Or _for_.\n\n[807] _Who talked with me_ omitted by Nowack.\n\n[808] Heb. _helped for evil_, or _till it became a calamity_.\n\n[809] Marcus Dods, _Hag., Zech. and Mal._, p. 71. Orelli: \u201cIn\ndistinction from Daniel, Zechariah is fond of a simultaneous survey,\nnot the presenting of a succession.\u201d\n\n[810] For the symbolism of iron horns see Micah iv. 13, and compare\nOrelli\u2019s note, in which it is pointed out that the destroyers must\nbe smiths as in Isa. xliv. 12, _workmen of iron_, and not as in LXX.\n_carpenters_.\n\n[811] Wellhausen and Nowack delete _Israel and Jerusalem_; the latter\ndoes not occur in Codd. A, Q, of Septuagint.\n\n[812] Wellhausen reads, after Mal. ii. 9, \u05db\u05e4\u05d9 \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8, _so that it lifted\nnot its head_; but in that case we should not find \u05e8\u05d0\u05c1\u05c1\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05b9, but\n\u05e8\u05d0\u05c1\u05c1\u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05d4\u05bc.\n\n[813]\u200e \u05d4\u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05d3, but LXX. read \u05d4\u05d7\u05d3\u05d9\u05d3, and either that or some verb of\ncutting must be read.\n\n[814] The Hebrew, literally _comes forth_, is the technical term\nthroughout the Visions for the entrance of the figures upon the stage\nof vision.\n\n[815] LXX. \u1f35\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9, _stood up_: adopted by Nowack.\n\n[816] Psalm xxiv.\n\n[817] Isa. xvii. 12-14.\n\n[818] Psalm cxxii. 3.\n\n[819] Some codd. read _with the four winds_. LXX. _from the four winds\nwill I gather you_ (\u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd\u03ac\u03be\u03c9 \u1f51\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2), and this is adopted by Wellhausen and\nNowack. But it is probably a later change intended to adapt the poem to\nits new context.\n\n[820] _Dweller of the daughter of Babel._ But \u05d1\u05ea, _daughter_, is mere\ndittography of the termination of the preceding word.\n\n[821] A curious phrase here occurs in the Heb. and versions, _After\nglory hath He sent me_, which we are probably right in omitting. In any\ncase it is a parenthesis, and ought to go not with _sent me_ but with\n_saith Jehovah of Hosts_.\n\n[822] So LXX. Heb. _to me_.\n\n[823] Cf. Zeph. i. 7; Hab. ii. 20. \u201cAmong the Arabians, after the\nslaughter of the sacrificial victim, the participants stood for some\ntime in silence about the altar. That was the moment in which the Deity\napproached in order to take His share in the sacrifice.\u201d (Smend, _A. T.\nRel. Gesch._, p. 124).\n\n[824] Cf. vv. 1 and 2.\n\n[825] See below, p. 318.\n\n[826] In this Vision the verb _to stand before_ is used in two\ntechnical senses: (_a_) of the appearance of plaintiff and defendant\nbefore their judge (vv. 1 and 3); (_b_) of servants before their\nmasters (vv. 4 and 7).\n\n[827] See below, p. 294, n. 835.\n\n[828] Isa. iv. 2, xi. 1; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15; Isa. liii. 2.\nStade (_Gesch. des Volkes Isr._, II. 125), followed by Marti (_Der\nProph. Sach._, 85 n.), suspects the clause _I will bring in My Servant\nthe Branch_ as a later interpolation, entangling the construction and\nfinding in this section no further justification.\n\n[829] Or _Adversary_; see p. 317.\n\n[830] _To Satan him_: _slander_, or _accuse, him_.\n\n[831] That is _the Angel of Jehovah_, which Wellhausen and Nowack read;\nbut see below, p. 314.\n\n[832] This clause interrupts the Angel\u2019s speech to the servants. Wellh.\nand Nowack omit it. \u05d4\u05e2\u05d1\u05d9\u05e8 cf. 2 Sam. xii. 13; Job vii. 21.\n\n[833] So LXX. Heb. has a degraded grammatical form, _clothe thyself_\nwhich has obviously been made to suit the intrusion of the previous\nclause, and is therefore an argument against the authenticity of the\nlatter.\n\n[834] LXX. omits _I said_ and reads _Let them put_ as another\nimperative, _Do ye put_, following on the two of the previous verse.\nWellhausen adopts this (reading \u05e9\u05d9\u05de\u05d5 for \u05d9\u05e9\u05d9\u05de\u05d5). Though it is difficult\nto see how \u05d5\u05d0\u05de\u05e8 dropped out of the text if once there, it is equally so\nto understand why if not original it was inserted. The whole passage\nhas been tampered with. If we accept the Massoretic text, then we have\na sympathetic interference in the vision of the dreamer himself which\nis very natural; and he speaks, as is proper, not in the direct, but\nindirect, imperative, _Let them put_.\n\n[835]\u200e \u05e6\u05b8\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05e3, the headdress of rich women (Isa. iii. 23), as of\neminent men (Job xxix. 14), means something wound round and round the\nhead (cf. the use of \u05e6\u05e0\u05e3 to form like a ball in Isa. xxii. 18, and the\nuse of \u05d7\u05d1\u05e9\u05c1 (to wind) to express the putting on of the headdress (Ezek.\nxvi. 10, etc.)). Hence _turban_ seems to be the proper rendering.\nAnother form from the same root, \u05de\u05e6\u05e0\u05e4\u05ea, is the name of the headdress of\nthe Prince of Israel (Ezek. xxi. 31); and in the Priestly Codex of the\nPentateuch the headdress of the high priest (Exod. xxviii. 37, etc.).\n\n[836] Wellhausen takes the last words of ver. 5 with ver. 6, reads\n\u05e2\u05b8\u05de\u05b7\u05d3 and renders _And the Angel of Jehovah stood up or stepped\nforward_. But even if \u05e2\u05b8\u05de\u05b7\u05d3 be read, the order of the words would\nrequire translation in the pluperfect, which would come to the same as\nthe original text. And if Wellhausen\u2019s proposal were correct the words\n_Angel of Jehovah_ in ver. 6 would be superfluous.\n\n[837] Read \u05de\u05b7\u05d4\u05b2\u05dc\u05b8\u05db\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd (Smend, _A. T. Rel. Gesch._, p. 324, n. 2).\n\n[838] Or _facets_.\n\n[839] _E.g._ Marti, _Der Prophet Sacharja_, p. 83.\n\n[840] Hitzig, Wright and many others. On the place of this stone in the\nlegends of Judaism see Wright, pp. 75 f.\n\n[841] Ewald, Marcus Dods.\n\n[842] Von Orelli, Volck.\n\n[843] Bredenkamp.\n\n[844] Wellhausen, _in loco_, and Smend, _A. T. Rel. Gesch._, 345.\n\n[845] So Marti, p. 88.\n\n[846] 1 Kings vii. 49.\n\n[847] 1 Macc. i. 21; iv. 49, 50. Josephus, XIV. _Ant._ iv. 4.\n\n[848] LXX. Heb. has _seven sevens_ of pipes.\n\n[849] Wellhausen reads _its right_ and deletes _the bowl_.\n\n[850]\u200e \u05d5\u05d0\u05e2\u05df. \u200e\u05e2\u05e0\u05d4 is not only _to answer_, but to take part in a\nconversation, whether by starting or continuing it. LXX. rightly\n\u1f10\u03c0\u03b7\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1.\n\n[851] Heb. _saying_.\n\n[852] In the Hebrew text, followed by the ancient and modern versions,\nincluding the English Bible, there here follows 6_b_-10_a_, the Word\nto Zerubbabel. They obviously disturb the narrative of the Vision, and\nWellhausen has rightly transferred them to the end of it, where they\ncome in as naturally as the word of hope to Joshua comes in at the end\nof the preceding Vision. Take them away, and, as can be seen above,\nver. 10_b_ follows quite naturally upon 6_a_.\n\n[853] Heb. _gold_. So LXX.\n\n[854] Wellhausen omits the whole of this second question (ver. 12) as\nintruded and unnecessary. So also Smend as a doublet on ver. 11 (_A. T.\nRel. Gesch._, 343 n.). So also Nowack.\n\n[855] Heb. _saying_.\n\n[856] LXX. _I_.\n\n[857] Or _Fair, fair is it!_ Nowack.\n\n[858] _The stone, the leaden_. Marti, _St. u. Kr._, 1892, p. 213 n.,\ntakes _the leaden_ for a gloss, and reads simply _the stone_, _i.e._\nthe top-stone; but the plummet is the last thing laid to the building\nto test the straightness of the top-stone.\n\n[859] _A. T. Rel. Gesch._, 312 n.\n\n[860]\u200e \u05de\u05d2\u05dc\u05d4 _roll_ or _volume_. LXX. \u03b4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, _sickle_, \u05de\u05b7\u05d2\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc.\n\n[861] A group of difficult expressions. The verb \u05e0\u05b4\u05e7\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4 is Ni. of a\nroot which originally had the physical meaning to _clean out of a\nplace_, and this Ni. is so used of a plundered town in Isa. iii. 26.\nBut its more usual meaning is to be spoken free from guilt (Psalm\nxix. 14, etc.). Most commentators take it here in the physical sense,\nHitzig quoting the use of \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03c9 in Mark vii. 19. \u05de\u05b4\u05d6\u05b6\u05d4 \u05db\u05b8\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05d4\u05b8 are\nvariously rendered. \u05de\u05d6\u05d4 is mostly understood as locative, _hence_,\n_i.e._ from the land just mentioned, but some take it with _steal_\n(Hitzig), some with _cleaned out_ (Ewald, Orelli, etc.). \u05db\u05b8\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05d4\u05b8 is\nrendered _like it_\u2014the flying roll (Ewald, Orelli), which cannot be,\nsince the roll flies upon the face of the land, and the sinner is to be\npurged out of it; or in accordance with the roll or its curse (Jerome,\nK\u00f6hler). But Wellhausen reads \u05de\u05b4\u05d6\u05b6\u05d4 \u05db\u05b7\u05de\u05b6\u05bc\u05d4, and takes \u05e0\u05b4\u05e7\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4 in its\nusual meaning and in the past tense, and renders _Every thief has for\nlong remained unpunished_; and so in the next clause. So, too, Nowack.\nLXX. _Every thief shall be condemned to death_, \u1f15\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f10\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n[862] Heb. _lodge_, _pass the night_: cf. Zeph. ii. 14 (above, p. 65),\n_pelican and bittern shall roost upon the capitals_.\n\n[863] Smend sees a continuation of Ezekiel\u2019s idea of the guilt of man\novertaking him (iii. 20, xxxiv.). Here God\u2019s curse does all.\n\n[864] This follows from the shape of the disc that fits into it. Seven\ngallons are seven-eighths of the English bushel: that in use in Canada\nand the United States is somewhat smaller.\n\n[865] Ewald.\n\n[866] Upon the stage of vision.\n\n[867] For Heb. \u05e2\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b8\u05dd read \u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05e0\u05b8\u05dd with LXX.\n\n[868] By inserting \u05d0\u05d9\u05e4\u05d4 after \u05de\u05d4 in ver. 5, and deleting\n\u05d5\u05d9\u05d0\u05de\u05e8 ... \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05e6\u05d0\u05ea in ver. 6, Wellhausen secures the more concise\ntext: _And see what this bushel is that comes forth. And I said, What is\nit? And he said, That is the evil of the people in the whole land_. But\nto reduce the redundancies of the Visions is to delete the most\ncharacteristic feature of their style. Besides, Wellhausen\u2019s result\ngives no sense. The prophet would not be asked to see what a bushel is:\nthe angel is there to tell him this. So Wellhausen in his translation\nhas to omit the \u05de\u05d4 of ver. 5, while telling us in his note to replace\n\u05d4\u05d0\u05d9\u05e4\u05d4 after it. His emendation is, therefore, to be rejected. Nowack,\nhowever, accepts it.\n\n[869] LXX. Heb. _this_.\n\n[870] In the last clause the verbal forms are obscure if not corrupt.\nLXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f15\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6 = \u05dc\u05b0\u05d4\u05b8\u05db\u05b4\u05d9\u05df \u05d5\u05b7\u05d4\u05b2\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05d7\u05bb\u05d4\u05b8 \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dd; but see\nEwald, _Syntax_, 131 _d_.\n\n[871] Wellhausen suggests that in the direction assigned to the white\nhorses, \u05d0\u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05d4\u05dd (ver. 6), which we have rendered _westward_, we might\nread \u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d3\u05dd, _land of the east_; and that from ver. 7 _the west_ has\nprobably fallen out after _they go forth_.\n\n[872] Heb. _I turned again and_.\n\n[873] Hebrew reads \u05d0\u05b2\u05de\u05bb\u05bc\u05e6\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05dd, _strong_; LXX. \u03c8\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03af, _dappled_, and for the\nprevious \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e8\u05bb\u05d3\u05bc\u05d9\u05dd, _spotted_ or _dappled_, it reads \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, _piebald_.\nPerhaps we should read \u05d7\u05de\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd (cf. Isa. lxiii. 1), _dark red_ or\n_sorrel_, with _grey spots_. So Ewald and Orelli. Wright keeps\n_strong_.\n\n[874] Wellhausen, supplying \u05dc before \u05d0\u05e8\u05d1\u05e2, renders _These go forth to\nthe four winds of heaven after they have presented themselves_, etc.\n\n[875] Heb. _behind them_.\n\n[876]\u200e \u05d0\u05de\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd, the second epithet of the horses of the fourth\nchariot, ver. 3. See note there.\n\n[877] Or _anger to bear_, Heb. _rest_.\n\n[878] The collective name for the Jews in exile.\n\n[879] LXX. \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, \u05de\u05b4\u05d7\u05b9\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd; but since an accusative\nis wanted to express the articles taken, Hitzig proposes to read\n\u05de\u05b7\u05d7\u05b2\u05de\u05b7\u05d3\u05b7\u05bc\u05d9, _My precious things_. The LXX. reads the other two names\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd.\n\n[880] The construction of ver. 10 is very clumsy; above it is rendered\nliterally. Wellhausen proposes to delete _and do thou go ... to the\nhouse of_, and take Yosiyahu\u2019s name as simply a fourth with the others,\nreading the last clause _who have come from Babylon_. This is to cut,\nnot disentangle, the knot.\n\n[881] The Hebrew text here has _Joshua son of Jehosadak, the high\npriest_, but there is good reason to suppose that the crown was meant\nfor Zerubbabel, but that the name of Joshua was inserted instead in a\nlater age, when the high priest was also the king\u2014see below, note. For\nthese reasons Ewald had previously supposed that the whole verse was\ngenuine, but that there had fallen out of it the words _and on the head\nof Zerubbabel_. Ewald found a proof of this in the plural form \u05e2\u05d8\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea,\nwhich he rendered _crowns_. (So also Wildeboer, _A. T._ _Litteratur_,\np. 297.) But \u05e2\u05d8\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea is to be rendered _crown_; see ver. 11, where it is\nfollowed by a singular verb. The plural form refers to the several\ncirclets of which it was woven.\n\n[882] Some critics omit the repetition.\n\n[883] So Wellhausen proposes to insert. The name was at least\nunderstood in the original text.\n\n[884] So LXX. Heb. _on his throne_.\n\n[885] With this phrase, vouched for by both the Heb. and the Sept.,\nthe rest of the received text cannot be harmonised. There were two:\none is the priest just mentioned who is to be at the right hand of the\ncrowned. The received text makes this crowned one to be the high priest\nJoshua. But if there are two and the priest is only secondary, the\ncrowned one must be Zerubbabel, whom Haggai has already designated as\nMessiah. Nor is it difficult to see why, in a later age, when the high\npriest was sovereign in Israel, Joshua\u2019s name should have been inserted\nin place of Zerubbabel\u2019s, and at the same time the phrase _priest at\nhis right hand_, to which the LXX. testifies in harmony with _the two\nof them_, should have been altered to the reading of the received text,\n_priest upon his throne_. With the above agree Smend, _A. T. Rel.\nGesch._, 343 n., and Nowack.\n\n[886] Heb. \u05d7\u05b5\u05dc\u05b6\u05dd, H\u0113lem, but the reading Heldai, \u05d7\u05dc\u05d3\u05d9, is proved by\nthe previous occurrence of the name and by the LXX. reading here, \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2\n\u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, _i.e._ from root \u05d7\u05dc\u05d3, _to last_.\n\n[887]\u200e \u05d7\u05df, but Wellhausen and others take it as abbreviation or\nmisreading for the name of Yosiyahu (see ver. 10).\n\n[888] Here the verse and paragraph break suddenly off in the middle of\na sentence. On the passage see Smend, 343 and 345.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXII\n\n _THE ANGELS OF THE VISIONS_\n\n ZECHARIAH i. 7\u2014vi. 8\n\n\nAmong the influences of the Exile which contributed the material of\nZechariah\u2019s Visions we included a considerable development of Israel\u2019s\nbelief in Angels. The general subject is in itself so large, and the\nAngels play so many parts in the Visions, that it is necessary to\ndevote to them a separate chapter.\n\nFrom the earliest times the Hebrews had conceived their Divine King to\nbe surrounded by a court of ministers, who besides celebrating His\nglory went forth from His presence to execute His will upon earth. In\nthis latter capacity they were called Messengers, Male\u2019akim, which the\nGreeks translated Angeloi, and so gave us our Angels. The origin of\nthis conception is wrapt in obscurity. It may have been partly due to a\nbelief, shared by all early peoples, in the existence of superhuman\nbeings inferior to the gods,[889] but even without this it must have\nsprung up in the natural tendency to provide the royal deity of a\npeople with a court, an army and servants. In the pious minds of early\nIsrael there must have been a kind of necessity to believe and develop\nthis\u2014a necessity imposed _firstly_ by the belief in Jehovah\u2019s residence\nas confined to one spot, Sinai or Jerusalem, from which He Himself went\nforth only upon great occasions to the deliverance of His people as a\nwhole; and _secondly_ by the unwillingness to conceive of His personal\nappearance in missions of a menial nature, or to represent Him in the\nhuman form in which, according to primitive ideas, He could alone hold\nconverse with men.\n\nIt can easily be understood how a religion, which was above all a\nreligion of revelation, should accept such popular conceptions in its\nconstant record of the appearance of God and His Word in human life.\nAccordingly, in the earliest documents of the Hebrews, we find angels\nwho bring to Israel the blessings, curses and commands of Jehovah.[890]\nApart from this duty and their human appearance, these beings are not\nconceived to be endowed either with character or, if we may judge by\ntheir namelessness,[891] with individuality. They are the Word of God\npersonified. Acting as God\u2019s mouthpiece, they are merged in Him, and so\ncompletely that they often speak of themselves by the Divine _I_.[892]\n\u201cThe _function_ of an Angel so overshadows his _personality_ that the\nOld Testament does not ask who or what this Angel is, but what he does.\nAnd the answer to the last question is, that he represents God to man\nso directly and fully that when he speaks or acts God Himself is felt\nto speak or act.\u201d[893] Besides the carriage of the Divine Word, angels\nbring back to their Lord report of all that happens: kings are said, in\npopular language, to be _as wise as the wisdom of an angel of God, to\nknow all the things that are in the earth_.[894] They are also employed\nin the deliverance and discipline of His people.[895] By them come the\npestilence,[896] and the restraint of those who set themselves against\nGod\u2019s will.[897]\n\nNow the prophets before the Exile had so spiritual a conception of God,\nworked so immediately from His presence, and above all were so\nconvinced of His personal and practical interest in the affairs of His\npeople, that they felt no room for Angels between Him and their hearts,\nand they do not employ Angels, except when Isaiah in his inaugural\nvision penetrates to the heavenly palace and court of the Most\nHigh.[898] Even when Amos sees a plummet laid to the walls of\nJerusalem, it is by the hands of Jehovah Himself,[899] and we have not\nencountered an Angel in the mediation of the Word to any of the\nprophets whom we have already studied. But Angels reappear, though not\nunder the name, in the visions of Ezekiel, the first prophet of the\nExile. They are in human form, and he calls them _Men_. Some execute\nGod\u2019s wrath upon Jerusalem,[900] and one, whose appearance is as the\nappearance of brass, acts as the interpreter of God\u2019s will to the\nprophet, and instructs him in the details of the building of City and\nTemple.[901] When the glory of Jehovah appears and Jehovah Himself\nspeaks to the prophet out of the Temple, this _Man_ stands by the\nprophet,[902] distinct from the Deity, and afterwards continues his\nwork of explanation. \u201cTherefore,\u201d as Dr. Davidson remarks, \u201cit is not\nthe sense of distance to which God is removed that causes Ezekiel to\ncreate these intermediaries.\u201d The necessity for them rather arises from\nthe same natural feeling, which we have suggested as giving rise to the\nearliest conceptions of Angels: the unwillingness, namely, to engage\nthe Person of God Himself in the subordinate task of explaining the\ndetails of the Temple. Note, too, how the Divine Voice, which speaks to\nEzekiel out of the Temple, blends and becomes one with the _Man_\nstanding at his side. Ezekiel\u2019s Angel-interpreter is simply one\nfunction of the Word of God.\n\nMany of the features of Ezekiel\u2019s Angels appear in those of Zechariah.\n_The four smiths_ or smiters of the four horns recall the six\nexecutioners of the wicked in Jerusalem.[903] Like Ezekiel\u2019s\nInterpreter, they are called _Men_,[904] and like him one appears as\nZechariah\u2019s instructor and guide: _he who talked with me_.[905] But\nwhile Zechariah calls these beings Men, he also gives them the ancient\nname, which Ezekiel had not used, of Male\u2019akim, _messengers_, _angels_.\nThe Instructor is _the Angel who talked with me_. In the First Vision,\n_the Man riding the brown horse, the Man that stood among the myrtles_,\nis _the Angel of Jehovah that stood among the myrtles_.[906] The\nInterpreter is also called _the Angel of Jehovah_, and if our text of\nthe First Vision be correct, the two of them are curiously mingled, as\nif both were functions of the same Word of God, and in personality not\nto be distinguished from each other. The Reporting Angel among the\nmyrtles takes up the duty of the Interpreting Angel and explains the\nVision to the prophet. In the Fourth Vision this dissolving view is\ncarried further, and the Angel of Jehovah is interchangeable with\nJehovah Himself;[907] just as in the Vision of Ezekiel the Divine Voice\nfrom the Glory and the Man standing beside the prophet are curiously\nmingled. Again in the Fourth Vision we hear of those _who stand in the\npresence of Jehovah_,[908] and in the Eighth of executant angels coming\nout from His presence with commissions upon the whole earth.[909]\n\nIn the Visions of Zechariah, then, as in the earlier books, we see the\nLord of all the earth, surrounded by a court of angels, whom He sends\nforth in human form to interpret His Word and execute His will, and in\ntheir doing of this there is the same indistinctness of individuality,\nthe same predominance of function over personality. As with Ezekiel,\none stands out more clearly than the rest, to be the prophet\u2019s\ninterpreter, whom, as in the earlier visions of angels, Zechariah calls\n_my lord_,[910] but even he melts into the figures of the rest. These\nare the old and borrowed elements in Zechariah\u2019s doctrine of Angels.\nBut he has added to them in several important particulars, which make\nhis Visions an intermediate stage between the Book of Ezekiel and the\nvery intricate angelology of later Judaism.\n\nIn the first place, Zechariah is the earliest prophet who introduces\norders and ranks among the angels. In his Fourth Vision the Angel of\nJehovah is the Divine Judge _before whom_[911] Joshua appears with the\nAdversary. He also has others standing _before him_[912] to execute his\nsentences. In the Third Vision, again, the Interpreting Angel does not\ncommunicate directly with Jehovah, but receives his words from another\nAngel who has come forth.[913] All these are symptoms, that even with a\nprophet, who so keenly felt as Zechariah did the ethical directness of\nGod\u2019s word and its pervasiveness through public life, there had yet\nbegun to increase those feelings of God\u2019s sublimity and awfulness,\nwhich in the later thought of Israel lifted Him to so far a distance\nfrom men, and created so complex a host of intermediaries, human and\nsuperhuman, between the worshipping heart and the Throne of Grace. We\ncan best estimate the difference in this respect between Zechariah and\nthe earlier prophets whom we have studied by remarking that his\ncharacteristic phrase _talked with me_, literally _spake in_ or _by\nme_, which he uses of the Interpreting Angel, is used by Habakkuk of\nGod Himself.[914] To the same awful impressions of the Godhead is\nperhaps due the first appearance of the Angel as intercessor. Amos,\nIsaiah and Jeremiah themselves directly interceded with God for the\npeople; but with Zechariah it is the Interpreting Angel who intercedes,\nand who in return receives the Divine comfort.[915] In this angelic\nfunction, the first of its kind in Scripture, we see the small and\nexplicable beginnings of a belief destined to assume enormous\ndimensions in the development of the Church\u2019s worship. The supplication\nof Angels, the faith in their intercession and in the prevailing\nprayers of the righteous dead, which has been so egregiously multiplied\nin certain sections of Christendom, may be traced to the same\nincreasing sense of the distance and awfulness of God, but is to be\ncorrected by the faith Christ has taught us of the nearness of our\nFather in Heaven, and of His immediate care of His every human child.\n\nThe intercession of the Angel in the First Vision is also a step\ntowards that identification of special Angels with different peoples\nwhich we find in the Book of Daniel. This tells us of heavenly\nprinces not only for Israel\u2014_Michael, your prince, the great prince\nwhich standeth up for the children of thy people_[916]\u2014but for the\nheathen nations, a conception the first beginnings of which we see in\na prophecy that was perhaps not far from being contemporaneous with\nZechariah.[917] Zechariah\u2019s Vision of a hierarchy among the angels was\nalso destined to further development. The head of the patrol among\nthe myrtles, and the Judge-Angel before whom Joshua appears, are the\nfirst Archangels. We know how these were further specialised, and had\neven personalities and names given them by both Jewish and Christian\nwriters.[918]\n\nAmong the Angels described in the Old Testament, we have seen some\ncharged with powers of hindrance and destruction\u2014_a troop of angels of\nevil_.[919] They too are the servants of God, who is the author of all\nevil as well as good,[920] and the instruments of His wrath. But the\ntemptation of men is also part of His Providence. Where wilful souls\nhave to be misled, the _spirit_ who does so, as in Ahab\u2019s case, comes\nfrom Jehovah\u2019s presence.[921] All these spirits are just as devoid of\ncharacter and personality as the rest of the angelic host. They work\nevil as mere instruments: neither malice nor falseness is attributed to\nthemselves. They are not rebel nor fallen angels, but obedient to\nJehovah. Nay, like Ezekiel\u2019s and Zechariah\u2019s Angels of the Word, the\nAngel who tempts David to number the people is interchangeable with God\nHimself.[922] Kindred to the duty of tempting men is that of\ndiscipline, in its forms both of restraining or accusing the guilty,\nand of vexing the righteous in order to test them. For both of these\nthe same verb is used, \u201cto satan,\u201d[923] in the general sense of\n_withstanding_, or antagonising. The Angel of Jehovah stood in Balaam\u2019s\nway _to satan him_.[924] The noun, _the Satan_, is used repeatedly of a\nhuman foe.[925] But in two passages, of which Zechariah\u2019s Fourth Vision\nis one, and the other the Prologue to Job,[926] the name is given to an\nAngel, one of _the sons of Elohim_, or Divine powers who receive their\ncommission from Jehovah. The noun is not yet, what it afterwards\nbecame,[927] a proper name; but has the definite article, _the\nAdversary_ or _Accuser_\u2014that is, the Angel to whom that function was\nassigned. With Zechariah his business is the official one of prosecutor\nin the supreme court of Jehovah, and when his work is done he\ndisappears. Yet, before he does so, we see for the first time in\nconnection with any angel a gleam of character. This is revealed by the\nLord\u2019s rebuke of him. There is something blameworthy in the accusation\nof Joshua: not indeed false witness, for Israel\u2019s guilt is patent in\nthe foul garments of their High Priest, but hardness or malice, that\nwould seek to prevent the Divine grace. In the Book of Job _the Satan_\nis also a function, even here not a fallen or rebel angel, but one of\nGod\u2019s court,[928] the instrument of discipline or chastisement. Yet, in\nthat he himself suggests his cruelties and is represented as forward\nand officious in their infliction, a character is imputed to him even\nmore clearly than in Zechariah\u2019s Vision. But the Satan still shares\nthat identification with his function which we have seen to\ncharacterise all the angels of the Old Testament, and therefore he\ndisappears from the drama so soon as his place in its high argument is\nover.[929]\n\nIn this description of the development of Israel\u2019s doctrine of Angels,\nand of Zechariah\u2019s contributions to it, we have not touched upon the\nquestion whether the development was assisted by Israel\u2019s contact with\nthe Persian religion and with the system of Angels which the latter\ncontains. For several reasons the question is a difficult one. But so\nfar as present evidence goes, it makes for a negative answer. Scholars,\nwho are in no way prejudiced against the theory of a large Persian\ninfluence upon Israel, declare that the religion of Persia affected the\nJewish doctrine of Angels \u201conly in secondary points,\u201d such as their\n\u201cnumber and personality, and the existence of demons and evil\nspirits.\u201d[930] Our own discussion has shown us that Zechariah\u2019s Angels,\nin spite of the new features they introduce, are in substance one with\nthe Angels of pre-exilic Israel. Even the Satan is primarily a\nfunction, and one of the servants of God. If he has developed an\nimmoral character, this cannot be attributed to the influence of\nPersian belief in a Spirit of evil opposed to the Spirit of good in the\nuniverse, but may be explained by the native, or selfish, resentment of\nIsrael against their prosecutor before the bar of Jehovah. Nor can we\nfail to remark that this character of evil appears in the Satan, not,\nas in the Persian religion, in general opposition to goodness, but as\nthwarting that saving grace which was so peculiarly Jehovah\u2019s own. And\nJehovah said to the Satan, _Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan, yea, Jehovah\nwho hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee! Is not this a brand plucked from\nthe burning?_\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[889] So Robertson Smith, art. \u201cAngels\u201d in the _Encyc. Brit._, 9th ed.\n\n[890] So already in Deborah\u2019s Song, Judg. v. 23, and throughout both J\nand E.\n\n[891] Cf. especially Gen. xxxii. 29.\n\n[892] Judg. vi. 12 ff.\n\n[893] Robertson Smith, as above.\n\n[894] 2 Sam. xiv. 20.\n\n[895] Exod. xiv. 19 (?), xxiii. 20, etc.; Josh. v. 13.\n\n[896] 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17; 2 Kings xix. 35; Exod. xii. 23. In Eccles.\nv. 6 this destroying angel is the minister of God: cf. Psalm lxxviii.\n49_b_, _hurtful angels_\u2014Cheyne, _Origin of Psalter_, p. 157.\n\n[897] Balaam: Num. xxii. 23, 31.\n\n[898] vi. 2-6.\n\n[899] Vol. I., p. 114.\n\n[900] ix.\n\n[901] xl. 3 ff.\n\n[902] xliii. 6.\n\n[903] Zech. i. 18 ff.; Ezek. ix. 1 ff.\n\n[904] Zech. i. 8: so even in the Book of Daniel we have _the man_\nGabriel\u2014ix. 21.\n\n[905] i. 9, 19; ii. 3; iv. 1, 4, 5; v. 5, 10; vi. 4. But see above, pp.\n261 f.\n\n[906] i. 8, 10, 11.\n\n[907] iii. 1 compared with 2.\n\n[908] iii. 6, 7.\n\n[909] vi. 5.\n\n[910] i. 9, etc.\n\n[911] iii. 1. _Stand before_ is here used forensically: cf. the N.T.\nphrases to _stand before God_, Rev. xx. 12; _before the judgment-seat\nof Christ_, Rom. xiv. 10; and _be acquitted_, Luke xxi. 36.\n\n[912] iii. 4. Here the phrase is used domestically of servants in the\npresence of their master. See above, p. 293, n. 826.\n\n[913] ii. 3, 4.\n\n[914] Hab. ii. 1: cf. also Num. xii. 6-9.\n\n[915] First Vision, i. 12.\n\n[916] x. 21, xii. 1.\n\n[917] Isa. xxiv. 21.\n\n[918] Book of Daniel x., xii.; Tobit xii. 15; Book of Enoch _passim_;\nJude 9; Rev. viii. 2, etc.\n\n[919] Psalm lxxviii. 49. See above, p. 312, n. 896.\n\n[920] Amos iii. 6.\n\n[921] 1 Kings xxii. 20 ff.\n\n[922] 2 Sam. xxiv. 1; 1 Chron. xxi. 1. Though here difference of age\nbetween the two documents may have caused the difference of view.\n\n[923] There are two forms of the verb, \u05e9\u05c2\u05d8\u05df, satan, and \u05e9\u05c2\u05d8\u05dd, satam,\nthe latter apparently the older.\n\n[924] Num. xxii. 22, 32.\n\n[925] 1 Sam. xxix. 4; 2 Sam. xix. 23 Heb., 22 Eng.; 1 Kings v. 18, xi.\n14, etc.\n\n[926] Zech. iii. 1 ff.; Job i. 6 ff.\n\n[927] 1 Chron. xxi. 1.\n\n[928] i. 6_b_.\n\n[929] See Davidson in _Cambridge Bible for Schools_ on Job i. 6-12,\nespecially on ver. 9: \u201cThe Satan of this book may show the beginnings\nof a personal malevolence against man, but he is still rigidly\nsubordinated to Heaven, and in all he does subserves its interests. His\nfunction is as the minister of God to try the sincerity of man; hence\nwhen his work of trial is over he is no more found, and no place is\ngiven him among the _dramatis person\u00e6_ of the poem.\u201d\n\n[930] Cheyne, _The Origin of the Psalter_, p. 272. Read carefully on\nthis point the very important remarks on pp. 270 ff. and 281 f.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIII\n\n \u201c_THE SEED OF PEACE_\u201d\n\n ZECHARIAH vii., viii.\n\n\nThe Visions have revealed the removal of the guilt of the land, the\nrestoration of Israel to their standing before God, the revival of the\ngreat national institutions, and God\u2019s will to destroy the heathen\nforces of the world. With the Temple built, Israel should be again in\nthe position which she enjoyed before the Exile. Zechariah, therefore,\nproceeds to exhort his people to put away the fasts which the Exile had\nmade necessary, and address themselves, as of old, to the virtues and\nduties of the civic life. And he introduces his orations to this end by\na natural appeal to the experience of the former days.\n\nThe occasion came to him when the Temple had been building for two\nyears, and when some of its services were probably resumed.[931] A\ndeputation of Jews appeared in Jerusalem and raised the question of the\ncontinuance of the great Fasts of the Exile. Who the deputation were is\nnot certain: probably we ought to delete _Bethel_ from the second\nverse, and read either _El-sar\u2019eser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to\nthe house of Jehovah to propitiate Jehovah_, or else _the house of\nEl-sar\u2019eser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to propitiate Jehovah_. It\nhas been thought that they came from the Jews in Babylon: this would\nagree with their arrival in the ninth month to inquire about a fast in\nthe fifth month. But Zechariah\u2019s answer is addressed to Jews in Jud\u00e6a.\nThe deputation limited their inquiry to the fast of the fifth month,\nwhich commemorated the burning of the Temple and the City, now\npractically restored. But with a breadth of view which reveals the\nprophet rather than the priest, Zechariah replies, in the following\nchapter, upon all the fasts by which Israel for seventy years had\nbewailed her ruin and exile. He instances two, that of the fifth month,\nand that of the seventh month, the date of the murder of Gedaliah, when\nthe last poor remnant of a Jewish state was swept away.[932] With a\nboldness which recalls Amos to the very letter, Zechariah asks his\npeople whether in those fasts they fasted at all to their God. Jehovah\nhad not charged them, and in fasting they had fasted for themselves,\njust as in eating and drinking they had eaten and drunken to\nthemselves. They should rather hearken to the words He really sent\nthem. In a passage, the meaning of which has been perverted by the\nintrusion of the eighth verse, that therefore ought to be deleted,\nZechariah recalls what those words of Jehovah had been in the former\ntimes when the land was inhabited and the national life in full course.\nThey were not ceremonial; they were ethical: they commanded justice,\nkindness, and the care of the helpless and the poor. And it was in\nconsequence of the people\u2019s disobedience to those words that all the\nruin came upon them for which they now annually mourned. The moral is\nobvious if unexpressed. Let them drop their fasts, and practise the\nvirtues the neglect of which had made their fasts a necessity. It is a\nsane and practical word, and makes us feel how much Zechariah has\ninherited of the temper of Amos and Isaiah. He rests, as before, upon\nthe letter of the ancient oracles, but only so as to bring out their\nspirit. With such an example of the use of ancient Scripture, it is\ndeplorable that so many men, both among the Jews and the Christians,\nshould have devoted themselves to the letter at the expense of the\nspirit.\n\n_And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the king, that the\nWord of Jehovah came to Zechariah on the fourth of the ninth month,\nKislev. For there sent to _the_ house _of Jehovah,_ El-sar\u2019eser and\nRegem-Melekh and his men,[933] to propitiate[934] Jehovah, to ask of\nthe priests which were in the house of Jehovah of Hosts and of the\nprophets as follows: Shall I weep in the fifth month with fasting as I\nhave now done so many years? And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to\nme: Speak now to all the people of the land, and to the priests,\nsaying: When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh\nmonth,[935] and this for seventy years, did ye fast at all to Me? And\nwhen ye eat and when ye drink, are not ye the eaters and ye the\ndrinkers? Are not these[936] the words which Jehovah proclaimed by the\nhand of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at peace,\nwith her cities round about her, and the Negeb and the Shephelah were\ninhabited?_\n\n[937]_Thus spake Jehovah of Hosts: Judge true judgment, and practise\ntowards each other kindness and mercy; oppress neither widow nor\norphan, stranger nor poor, and think not evil in your hearts towards\none another. But they refused to hearken, and turned a rebellious\nshoulder,[938] and their ears they dulled from listening. And their\nheart they made adamant, so as not to hear the Torah and the words\nwhich Jehovah of Hosts sent through His Spirit by the hand of the\nformer prophets; and there was great wrath from Jehovah of Hosts. And\nit came to pass that, as He had called and they heard not, so they\nshall call and I will not hear, said Jehovah of Hosts, but I will\nwhirl[939] them away among nations whom they know not. And the land was\nlaid waste behind them, without any to pass to and fro, and they made\nthe pleasant land desolate._\n\nThere follow upon this deliverance ten other short oracles: chap. viii.\nWhether all of this decalogue are to be dated from the same time as the\nanswer to the deputation about the fasts is uncertain. Some of them\nappear rather to belong to an earlier date, for they reflect the\nsituation, and even the words, of Haggai\u2019s oracles, and represent the\nadvent of Jehovah to Jerusalem as still future. But they return to the\nquestion of the fasts, treating it still more comprehensively than\nbefore, and they close with a promise, fitly spoken as the Temple grew\nto completion, of the coming of the heathen to worship at Jerusalem.\n\nWe have already noticed the tender charm and strong simplicity of these\nprophecies,[940] and there is little now to add except the translation\nof them. As with the older prophets, and especially the great\nEvangelist of the Exile, they start from the glowing love of Jehovah\nfor His people, to which nothing is impossible;[941] they promise a\ncomplete return of the scattered Jews to their land, and are not\ncontent except with the assurance of a world converted to the faith of\ntheir God. With Haggai Zechariah promises the speedy end of the poverty\nof the little colony; and he adds his own characteristic notes of a\nreign of peace to be used for hearty labour, bringing forth a great\nprosperity. Only let men be true and just and kind, thinking no evil of\neach other, as in those hard days when hunger and the fierce rivalry\nfor sustenance made every one\u2019s neighbour his enemy, and the petty\nlife, devoid of large interests for the commonweal, filled their hearts\nwith envy and malice. For ourselves the chief profit of these beautiful\noracles is their lesson that the remedy for the sordid tempers and\ncruel hatreds, engendered by the fierce struggle for existence, is\nfound in civic and religious hopes, in a noble ideal for the national\nlife, and in the assurance that God\u2019s Love is at the back of all, with\nnothing impossible to it. Amid these glories, however, the heart will\nprobably thank Zechariah most for his immortal picture of the streets\nof the new Jerusalem: old men and women sitting in the sun, boys and\ngirls playing in all the open places. The motive of it, as we have\nseen, was found in the circumstances of his own day. Like many another\nemigration, for religion\u2019s sake, from the heart of civilisation to a\nbarren coast, the poor colony of Jerusalem consisted chiefly of men,\nyoung and in middle life. The barren years gave no encouragement to\nmarriage. The constant warfare with neighbouring tribes allowed few to\nreach grey hairs. It was a rough and a hard society, unblessed by the\ntwo great benedictions of life, childhood and old age. But this should\nall be changed, and Jerusalem filled with placid old men and women, and\nwith joyous boys and girls. The oracle, we say, had its motive in\nZechariah\u2019s day. But what an oracle for these times of ours! Whether in\nthe large cities of the old world, where so few of the workers may hope\nfor a quiet old age, sitting in the sun, and the children\u2019s days of\nplay are shortened by premature toil and knowledge of evil; or in the\nnewest fringes of the new world, where men\u2019s hardness and coarseness\nare, in the struggle for gold, unawed by reverence for age and\nunsoftened by the fellowship of childhood,\u2014Zechariah\u2019s great promise is\nequally needed. Even there shall it be fulfilled if men will remember\nhis conditions\u2014that the first regard of a community, however straitened\nin means, be the provision of religion, that truth and whole-hearted\njustice abound in the gates, with love and loyalty in every heart\ntowards every other.\n\n_And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came, saying:\u2014_\n\n1. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: I am jealous for Zion with a great\njealousy, and with great anger am I jealous for her._\n\n2. _Thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Zion, and I dwell in the midst\nof Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the City of Troth,[942]\nand the mountain of Jehovah of Hosts the Holy Mountain._\n\n3. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Old men and old women shall yet sit in\nthe streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand, for fulness of days;\nand the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in\nher streets._\n\n4. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Because it seems too wonderful to the\nremnant of this people in those days, shall it also seem too wonderful\nto Me?\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts._\n\n5. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Lo! I am about to save My people out\nof the land of the rising and out of the land of the setting of the\nsun; and I will bring them home, and they shall dwell in the midst of\nJerusalem, and they shall be to Me for a people,[943] and I will be to\nthem for God, in troth and in righteousness._\n\n6. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Strengthen your hands, O ye who have\nheard in such days such words from the mouth of the prophets,\nsince[944] the day when the House of Jehovah of Hosts was founded: the\nsanctuary was to be built! For before those days there was no gain for\nman,[945] and none to be made by cattle; and neither for him that went\nout nor for him that came in was there any peace from the adversary,\nand I set every man\u2019s hand against his neighbour. But not now as in the\npast days am I towards the remnant of this people\u2014oracle of Jehovah of\nHosts. For I am sowing the seed of peace.[946] The vine shall yield her\nfruit, and the land yield her increase, and the heavens yield their\ndew, and I will give them all for a heritage to the remnant of this\npeople. And it shall come to pass, that as ye have been a curse among\nthe nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you\nand ye shall be a blessing! Be not afraid, strengthen your hands!_\n\n7. _For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: As I have planned to do evil to\nyou, for the provocation your fathers gave Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts,\nand did not relent, so have I turned and planned in these days to do\ngood to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. Be not afraid! These are\nthe things which ye shall do: Speak truth to one another; truth and\nwholesome judgment decree ye in your gates; and plan no evil to each\nother in your hearts, nor take pleasure in false swearing: for it is\nall these that I hate\u2014oracle of Jehovah._\n\n_And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me, saying:\u2014_\n\n8. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the\nfast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the\ntenth, shall become to the house of Judah joy and gladness and happy\nfeasts.[947] But love ye truth and peace._\n\n9. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: There shall yet come peoples and\ncitizens of great cities; and the citizens of one city[948] will go to\nanother city, saying: \u201cLet us go to propitiate Jehovah, and to seek\nJehovah of Hosts!\u201d \u201cI will go too!\u201d And many peoples and strong nations\nshall come to seek Jehovah of Hosts in Jerusalem and to propitiate\nJehovah._\n\n10. _Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: In those days ten men, of all\nlanguages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew and\nsay, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[931] Cf. chap. vii. 3: _the priests which were of the house of\nJehovah_.\n\n[932] Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25.\n\n[933] The Hebrew text is difficult if not impossible to construe: _For\nBethel sent Sar\u2019eser_ (without sign of accusative) _and Regem-Melekh\nand his men_. Wellhausen points out that Sar\u2019eser is a defective name,\nrequiring the name or title of deity in front of it, and Marti proposes\nto find this in the last syllable of Bethel, and to read \u2019El-sar\u2019eser.\nIt is tempting to find in the first syllable of Bethel the remnant of\nthe phrase _to the house of Jehovah_.\n\n[934] To stroke the face of.\n\n[935] The fifth month Jerusalem fell, the seventh month Gedaliah was\nmurdered: Jer. lii. 12 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 8 f., 25.\n\n[936] So LXX. Heb. has acc. sign before _words_, perhaps implying _Is\nit not rather necessary to do the words?_ etc.\n\n[937] Omit here ver. 8, _And the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah,\nsaying_. It is obviously a gloss by a scribe who did not notice that\nthe \u05db\u05d4 \u05d0\u05de\u05e8 of ver. 9 is God\u2019s statement by the former prophets.\n\n[938] Cf. the phrase _with one shoulder_, _i.e._ unanimously.\n\n[939] So Heb. and LXX.; but perhaps we ought to point _and I whirled\nthem away_, taking the clause with the next.\n\n[940] See above, pp. 271 f.\n\n[941] Cf. especially Isa. xl. ff.\n\n[942] Isa. i. 26.\n\n[943] Not merely _My people_ (Wellhausen), but their return shall\nconstitute them a people once more. The quotation is from Hosea ii. 25.\n\n[944] So LXX.\n\n[945] _But he that made wages made them to put them into a bag with\nholes_, Haggai i. 6.\n\n[946] Read \u05db\u05d9 \u05d0\u05d6\u05e8\u05e2\u05d4 \u05d4\u05e9\u05dc\u05d5\u05dd for \u05db\u05d9 \u05d6\u05e8\u05e2 \u05d4\u05e9\u05dc\u05d5\u05dd of the text, _for the seed\nof peace_. The LXX. makes \u05d6\u05e8\u05e2 a verb. Cf. Hosea ii. 23 ff., which the\nnext clauses show to be in the mind of our prophet. Klostermann and\nNowack prefer \u05d6\u05b7\u05e8\u05b0\u05e2\u05b8\u05d4\u05bc \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd, _her_ (the remnant\u2019s) _seed shall be\npeace_.\n\n[947] In the tenth month the siege of Jerusalem had begun (2 Kings\nxxv. 1); on the ninth of the fourth month Jerusalem was taken (Jer.\nxxxix. 2); on the seventh of the fifth City and Temple were burnt down\n(2 Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was assassinated and\nthe poor relics of a Jewish state swept from the land (Jer. xli.). See\nabove, pp. 30 ff.\n\n[948] LXX. _the citizens of five cities will go to one_.\n\n\n\n\n \u201c_MALACHI_\u201d\n\n\n\n\n _Have we not all One Father? Why then are we unfaithful to each other?_\n\n _The lips of a Priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from\n his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah of Hosts._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIV\n\n _THE BOOK OF \u201cMALACHI\u201d_\n\n\nThis book, the last in the arrangement of the prophetic canon, bears\nthe title: _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah to Israel by the\nhand of mal\u0115\u2019akhi_. Since at least the second century of our era the\nword has been understood as a proper name, Malachi or Malachias. But\nthere are strong objections to this, as well as to the genuineness of\nthe whole title, and critics now almost universally agree that the book\nwas originally anonymous.\n\nIt is true that neither in form nor in meaning is there any insuperable\nobstacle to our understanding \u201cmal\u0115\u2019akhi\u201d as the name of a person. If\nso, however, it cannot have been, as some have suggested, an\nabbreviation of Mal\u0115\u2019akhiyah, for, according to the analogy of other\nnames of such formation, this could only express the impossible meaning\n_Jehovah is Angel_.[949] But, as it stands, it might have meant _My\nAngel_ or _Messenger_, or it may be taken as an adjective,\n_Angelicus_.[950] Either of these meanings would form a natural name\nfor a Jewish child, and a very suitable one for a prophet. There is\nevidence, however, that some of the earliest Jewish interpreters did\nnot think of the title as containing the name of a person. The\nSeptuagint read _by the hand of His messenger_,[951] \u201cmal\u0115\u2019akho\u201d; and\nthe Targum of Jonathan, while retaining \u201cmal\u0115\u2019akhi,\u201d rendered it _My\nmessenger_, adding that it was Ezra the Scribe who was thus\ndesignated.[952] This opinion was adopted by Calvin.\n\nRecent criticism has shown that, whether the word was originally\nintended as a personal name or not, it was a purely artificial one\nborrowed from chap. iii. 1, _Behold, I send My messenger_, \u201cmal\u0115\u2019akhi,\u201d\nfor the title, which itself has been added by the editor of the Twelve\nProphets in the form in which we now have them. The peculiar words of\nthe title, _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah_, occur nowhere\nelse than in the titles of the two prophecies which have been appended\nto the Book of Zechariah, chap. ix. 1 and chap. xii. 1, and immediately\nprecede this Book of \u201cMalachi.\u201d In chap. ix. 1 _the Word of Jehovah_\nbelongs to the text; _Burden_ or _Oracle_ has been inserted before it\nas a title; then the whole phrase has been inserted as a title in chap.\nxii. 1. These two pieces are anonymous, and nothing is more likely than\nthat another anonymous prophecy should have received, when attached to\nthem, the same heading.[953] The argument is not final, but it is the\nmost probable explanation of the data, and agrees with the other facts.\nThe cumulative force of all that we have stated\u2014the improbability of\nmal\u0115\u2019akhi being a personal name, the fact that the earliest versions do\nnot treat it as such, the obvious suggestion for its invention in the\nmal\u0115\u2019akhi of chap. iii. 1, the absence of a father\u2019s name and place of\nresidence, and the character of the whole title\u2014is enough for the\nopinion rapidly spreading among critics that our book was, like so much\nmore in the Old Testament, originally anonymous.[954] The author\nattacks the religious authorities of his day; he belongs to a pious\nremnant of his people, who are overborne and perhaps oppressed by the\nmajority.[955] In these facts, which are all we know of his\npersonality, he found sufficient reason for not attaching his name to\nhis prophecy.\n\nThe book is also undated, but it reflects its period almost as clearly\nas do the dated Books of Haggai and Zechariah. The conquest of Edom\nby the Nabateans, which took place during the Exile,[956] is already\npast.[957] The Jews are under a Persian viceroy.[958] They are in touch\nwith a heathen power, which does not tyrannise over them, for this\nbook is the first to predict no judgment upon the heathen, and the\nfirst, moreover, to acknowledge that among the heathen the true God\nis worshipped _from the rising to the setting of the sun_.[959] The\nonly judgment predicted is one upon the false and disobedient portion\nof Israel, whose arrogance and success have cast true Israelites into\ndespair.[960] All this reveals a time when the Jews were favourably\ntreated by their Persian lords. The reign must be that of Artaxerxes\nLonghand, 464\u2014424.\n\nThe Temple has been finished,[961] and years enough have elapsed to\ndisappoint those fervid hopes with which about 518 Zechariah expected\nits completion. The congregation has grown worldly and careless. In\nparticular the priests are corrupt and partial in the administration of\nthe Law.[962] There have been many marriages with the heathen women of\nthe land;[963] and the laity have failed to pay the tithes and other\ndues to the Temple.[964] These are the evils against which we find\nstrenuous measures directed by Ezra, who returned from Babylon in\n458,[965] and by Nehemiah, who visited Jerusalem as its governor for\nthe first time in 445 and for the second time in 433. Besides, \u201cthe\nreligious spirit of the book is that of the prayers of Ezra and\nNehemiah. A strong sense of the unique privileges of the children of\nJacob, the objects of electing love,[966] the children of the Divine\nFather,[967] is combined with an equally strong assurance of Jehovah\u2019s\nrighteousness amidst the many miseries that pressed on the unhappy\ninhabitants of Jud\u00e6a.... Obedience to the Law is the sure path to\nblessedness.\u201d[968] But the question still remains whether the Book of\n\u201cMalachi\u201d prepared for, assisted or followed up the reforms of Ezra and\nNehemiah. An ancient tradition already alluded to[969] assigned the\nauthorship to Ezra himself.\n\nRecent criticism has been divided among the years immediately before\nEzra\u2019s arrival in 458, those immediately before Nehemiah\u2019s first visit\nin 445, those between his first government and his second, and those\nafter Nehemiah\u2019s disappearance from Jerusalem. But the years in which\nNehemiah held office may be excluded, because the Jews are represented\nas bringing gifts to the governor, which Nehemiah tells us he did not\nallow to be brought to him.[970] The whole question depends upon what\nLaw was in practice in Israel when the book was written. In 445 Ezra\nand Nehemiah, by solemn covenant between the people and Jehovah,\ninstituted the code which we now know as the Priestly Code of the\nPentateuch. Before that year the ritual and social life of the Jews\nappear to have been directed by the Deuteronomic Code. Now the Book of\n\u201cMalachi\u201d enforces a practice with regard to the tithes, which agrees\nmore closely with the Priestly Code than it does with Deuteronomy.\nDeuteronomy commands that every third year the whole tithe is to be\ngiven to the Levites and the poor who reside _within the gates_ of the\ngiver, and is there to be eaten by them. \u201cMalachi\u201d commands that the\nwhole tithe be brought into the storehouse of the Temple for the\nLevites in service there; and so does the Priestly Code.[971] On this\nground many date the Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d after 445.[972] But \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d\ndivergence from Deuteronomy on this point may be explained by the fact\nthat in his time there were practically no Levites outside Jerusalem;\nand it is to be noticed that he joins the tithe with the t\u0115r\u00fbmah or\nheave-offering exactly as Deuteronomy does.[973] On other points of the\nLaw he agrees rather with Deuteronomy than with the Priestly Code. He\nfollows Deuteronomy in calling the priests _sons of Levi_,[974] while\nthe Priestly Code limits the priesthood to the sons of Aaron. He seems\nto quote Deuteronomy when forbidding the oblation of blind, lame and\nsick beasts;[975] appears to differ from the Priestly Code which allows\nthe sacrificial beast to be male or female, when he assumes that it is\na male;[976] follows the expressions of Deuteronomy and not those of\nthe Priestly Code in detailing the sins of the people;[977] and uses\nthe Deuteronomic phrases _the Law of Moses_, _My servant Moses_,\n_statutes and judgments_, and _Horeb_ for the Mount of the Law.[978]\nFor the rest, he echoes or implies only Ezekiel and that part of the\nPriestly Code[979] which is regarded as earlier than the rest, and\nprobably from the first years of exile. Moreover he describes the Torah\nas not yet fully codified.[980] The priests still deliver it in a way\nimprobable after 445. The trouble of the heathen marriages with which\nhe deals (if indeed the verses on this subject be authentic and not a\nlater intrusion[981]) was that which engaged Ezra\u2019s attention on his\narrival in 458, but Ezra found that it had already for some time been\nvexing the heads of the community. While, therefore, we are obliged to\ndate the Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d before 445 B.C., it is uncertain whether it\npreceded or followed Ezra\u2019s attempts at reform in 458. Most critics now\nthink that it preceded them.[982]\n\nThe Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d is an argument with the prophet\u2019s contemporaries,\nnot only with the wicked among them, who in forgetfulness of what\nJehovah is corrupt the ritual, fail to give the Temple its dues, abuse\njustice, marry foreign wives,[983] divorce their own, and commit\nvarious other sins; but also with the pious, who, equally forgetful\nof God\u2019s character, are driven by the arrogance of the wicked to\nask, whether He loves Israel, whether He is a God of justice, and\nto murmur that it is vain to serve Him. To these two classes of his\ncontemporaries the prophet has the following answers. God does love\nIsrael. He is worshipped everywhere among the heathen. He is the Father\nof all Israel. He will bless His people when they put away all abuses\nfrom their midst and pay their religious dues; and His Day of Judgment\nis coming, when the good shall be separated from the wicked. But before\nit come, Elijah the prophet will be sent to attempt the conversion of\nthe wicked, or at least to call the nation to decide for Jehovah. This\nargument is pursued in seven or perhaps eight paragraphs, which do not\nshow much consecutiveness, but are addressed, some to the wicked, and\nsome to the despairing adherents of Jehovah.\n\n 1. Chap. i. 2-5.\u2014To those who ask how God loves Israel, the proof of\n Jehovah\u2019s election of Israel is shown in the fall of the Edomites.\n\n 2. Chap. i. 6-14.\u2014Charge against the people of\n dishonouring their God, whom even the heathen reverence.\n\n 3. Chap. ii. 1-9.\u2014Charge against the priests, who have broken the\n covenant God made of old with Levi, and debased their high office by\n not reverencing Jehovah, by misleading the people and by perverting\n justice. A curse is therefore fallen on them\u2014they are contemptible in\n the people\u2019s eyes.\n\n 4. Chap. ii. 10-16.\u2014A charge against the people for their treachery to\n each other; instanced in the heathen marriages, if the two verses, 11\n and 12, upon this be authentic, and in their divorce of their wives.\n\n 5. Chap. ii. 17\u2014iii. 5 or 6.\u2014Against those who in the midst of such\n evils grow sceptical about Jehovah. His Angel, or Himself, will come\n _first_ to purge the priesthood and ritual that there may be pure\n sacrifices, and _second_ to rid the land of its criminals and sinners.\n\n 6. Chap. iii. 6 or 7-12.\u2014A charge against the people of neglecting\n tithes. Let these be paid, disasters shall cease and the land be\n blessed.\n\n 7. Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., Chap. iii. 13\u2014iv. 2 LXX. and Eng.\u2014Another\n charge against the pious for saying it is vain to serve God. God will\n rise to action and separate between the good and bad in the terrible\n Day of His coming.\n\n 8. To this, Chap. iii. 22-24 Heb., Chap. iv. 3-5 Eng., adds a call to\n keep the Law, and a promise that Elijah will be sent to see whether he\n may not convert the people before the Day of the Lord comes upon them\n with its curse.\n\nThe authenticity of no part of the book has been till now in serious\nquestion. B\u00f6hme,[984] indeed, took the last three verses for a later\naddition, on account of their Deuteronomic character, but, as Kuenen\npoints out, this is in agreement with other parts of the book.\nSufficient attention has not yet been paid to the question of the\nintegrity of the text. The Septuagint offers a few emendations.[985]\nThere are other passages obviously or probably corrupt.[986] The text\nof the title, as we have seen, is uncertain, and probably a later\naddition. Professor Robertson Smith has called attention to chap. ii.\n16, where the Massoretic punctuation seems to have been determined with\nthe desire to support the rendering of the Targum \u201cif thou hatest her\nput her away,\u201d and so pervert into a permission to divorce a passage\nwhich forbids divorce almost as clearly as Christ Himself did. But in\ntruth the whole of this passage, chap. ii. 10-16, is in such a curious\nstate that we can hardly believe in its integrity. It opens with the\nstatement that God is the Father of all us Israelites, and with the\nchallenge, why then are we faithless to each other?\u2014ver. 10. But vv. 11\nand 12 do not give an instance of this: they describe the marriages\nwith the heathen women of the land, which is not a proof of\nfaithlessness between Israelites. Such a proof is furnished only by vv.\n13-16, with their condemnation of those who divorce the wives of their\nyouth. The verses, therefore, cannot lie in their proper order, and vv.\n13-16 ought to follow immediately upon ver. 10. This raises the\nquestion of the authenticity of vv. 11 and 12, against the heathen\nmarriages. If they bear such plain marks of having been intruded into\ntheir position, we can understand the possibility of such an intrusion\nin subsequent days, when the question of the heathen marriages came to\nthe front with Ezra and Nehemiah. Besides, these verses 11 and 12 lack\nthe characteristic mark of all the other oracles of the book: they do\nnot state a general charge against the people, and then introduce the\npeople\u2019s question as to the particulars of the charge. On the whole,\ntherefore, these verses are suspicious. If not a later intrusion, they\nare at least out of place where they now lie. The peculiar remark in\nver. 13, _and this secondly ye do_, must have been added by the editor\nto whom we owe the present arrangement.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[949]\u200e \u05de\u05dc\u05d0\u05db\u05d9\u05d4 or \u05de\u05dc\u05d0\u05db\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5. To judge from the analogy of other cases\nof the same formation (_e.g._ Abiyah = Jehovah is Father, and not\nFather of Jehovah), this name, if ever extant, could not have borne the\nmeaning, which Robertson Smith, Cornill, Kirkpatrick, etc., suppose it\nmust have done, of _Angel of Jehovah_. These scholars, it should be\nadded, oppose, for various reasons, the theory that it is a proper\nname.\n\n[950] Cf. the suggested meaning of Haggai, Festus. Above, p. 231.\n\n[951] And added the words, _lay_ it _to your hearts_: \u1f10\u03bd \u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b4\u1f74 \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f51\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd. Bachmann (_A. T. Untersuch._,\nBerlin, 1894, pp. 109 ff.) takes this added clause as a translation of\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05e9\u05b4\u05c2\u05d9\u05de\u05d5\u05bc \u05d1\u05b7\u05dc\u05b5\u05bc\u05d1, and suggests that it may be a corruption of an original \u05d5\u05bc\u05e9\u05b0\u05b0\u05c1\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\n\u05db\u05b8\u05dc\u05b5\u05d1, _and his name was Kaleb_. But the reading \u05d5\u05b0\u05e9\u05b4\u05c2\u05d9\u05de\u05d5\u05bc \u05d1\u05b7\u05dc\u05b5\u05bc\u05d1 is not the\nexact equivalent of the Greek phrase.\n\n[952]\u200e \u05de\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05d0\u05b2\u05db\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d3\u05b0\u05d9\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05e7\u05b0\u05e8\u05b5\u05d9 \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05de\u05b5\u05d9\u05d4\u05bc \u05e2\u05b6\u05d6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0 \u05e1\u05b8\u05e4\u05b0\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0.\n\n[953] See Stade, _Z.A.T.W._, 1881, p. 14; 1882, p. 308; Cornill,\n_Einleitung_, 4th ed., pp. 207 f.\n\n[954] So (besides Calvin, who takes it as a title) even Hengstenberg in\nhis _Christology of the O. T._, Ewald, Kuenen, Reuss, Stade, Rob.\nSmith, Cornill, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick (probably), Wildeboer, Nowack.\nOn the other side Hitzig, Vatke, N\u00e4gelsbach and Volck (in Herzog), Von\nOrelli, Pusey and Robertson hold it to be a personal name\u2014Pusey with\nthis qualification, \u201cthat the prophet may have framed it for himself,\u201d\nsimilarly Orelli. They support their opinion by the fact that even the\nLXX. entitle the book \u039c\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2; that the word was regarded as a proper\nname in the early Church, and that it is a possible name for a Hebrew.\nIn opposition to the hypothesis that it was borrowed from chap. iii. 1,\nHitzig suggests the converse that in the latter the prophet plays upon\nhis own name. None of these critics, however, meets the objections to\nthe name drawn from the peculiar character of the title and its\nrelations to Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1. The supposed name of the prophet gave\nrise to the legend supported by many of the Fathers that Malachi, like\nHaggai and John the Baptist, was an incarnate angel. This is stated and\ncondemned by Jerome, _Comm. ad Hag._ i. 13, but held by Origen,\nTertullian and others. The existence of such an opinion is itself proof\nfor the impersonal character of the name. As in the case of the rest of\nthe prophets, Christian tradition furnishes the prophet with the\noutline of a biography. See (Pseud-)Epiphanius and other writers quoted\nabove, p. 232.\n\n[955] iii. 16 ff.\n\n[956] See above on Obadiah, p. 169, and below on the passage itself.\n\n[957] i. 2-5.\n\n[958] i. 8.\n\n[959] i. 11: the verbs here are to be taken in the present, not as in\nA.V. in the future, tense.\n\n[960] _Passim_: especially iii. 13 ff., 24.\n\n[961] i. 10; iii. 1, 10.\n\n[962] ii. 1-9.\n\n[963] ii. 10-16.\n\n[964] iii. 7-12.\n\n[965] See above, pp. 195 f.\n\n[966] i. 2.\n\n[967] ii. 10.\n\n[968] ii. 17\u2014iii. 12; iii. 22 f., Eng. iv. The above sentences are from\nRobertson Smith, art. \u201cMalachi,\u201d _Encyc. Brit._, 9th ed.\n\n[969] Above, p. 332, n. 952.\n\n[970] \u201cMal.\u201d i. 8; Neh. v.\n\n[971] Deut. xii. 11, xxvi. 12; \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 8, 10; Num. xviii. 21 ff.\n(P).\n\n[972] Vatke (contemporaneous with Nehemiah), Schrader, Keil, Kuenen\n(perhaps in second governorship of Nehemiah, but see above, p. 335, for\na decisive reason against this), K\u00f6hler, Driver, Von Orelli (between\nNehemiah\u2019s first and second visit), Kirkpatrick, Robertson.\n\n[973] Deut. xii. 11. In P t\u0115r\u00fbmah is a due paid to priests as distinct\nfrom Levites.\n\n[974] ii. 4-8: cf. Deut. xxxiii. 8.\n\n[975] i. 8; Deut. xv. 21.\n\n[976] i. 14; Lev. iii. 1, 6.\n\n[977] iii. 5; Deut. v. 11 ff., xviii. 10, xxiv. 17 ff.; Lev. xix. 31,\n33 f., xx. 6.\n\n[978] iii. 22 Heb., iv. 4 Eng. _Law of Moses_ and _Moses My servant_\nare found only in the Deuteronomistic portions of the Hexateuch and\nhistorical books and here. In P Sinai is the Mount of the Law. To the\nabove may be added _segullah_, iii. 17, which is found in the\nPentateuch only outside P and in Psalm cxxxv. 4. All these resemblances\nbetween \u201cMalachi\u201d and Deuteronomy and \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d divergences from P\nare given in Robertson Smith\u2019s _Old Test. in the Jewish Church_, 2nd\ned., 425 ff.: cf. 444 ff.\n\n[979] Lev. xvii.\u2014xxvi. From this and Ezekiel he received the conception\nof the profanation of the sanctuary by the sins of the people\u2014ii. 11:\ncf. also ii. 2, iii. 3, 4, for traces of Ezekiel\u2019s influence.\n\n[980] ii. 6 ff.\n\n[981] See below, pp. 340, 363, 365.\n\n[982] Herzfeld, Bleek, Stade, Kautzsch (probably), Wellhausen\n(_Gesch._, p. 125), Nowack before the arrival of Ezra, Cornill either\nsoon before or soon after 458, Robertson Smith either before or soon\nafter 445. Hitzig at first put it before 458, but was afterwards\nmoved to date it after 358, as he took the overthrow of the Edomites\ndescribed in chap. i. 2-5 to be due to a campaign in that year by\nArtaxerxes Ochus (cf. Euseb., _Chron._, II. 221).\n\n[983] But see below, pp. 340, 365.\n\n[984] _Z.A.T.W._, 1887, 210 ff.\n\n[985] i. 11, for \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc \u03b4\u03b5\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9; perhaps ii. 12, \u05e2\u05d3 for \u05e2\u05e8; perhaps\niii. 8 ff., for \u05e2\u05e7\u05d1 \u05e7\u05d1\u05e2;\u200e 16, for \u05d0\u05d5 \u03c4\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b1.\n\n[986] i. 11 ff.; ii. 3, and perhaps 12, 15.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXV\n\n _FROM ZECHARIAH TO \u201cMALACHI\u201d_\n\n\nBetween the completion of the Temple in 516 and the arrival of Ezra in\n458, we have almost no record of the little colony round Mount Zion.\nThe Jewish chronicles devote to the period but a few verses of\nunsupported tradition.[987] After 517 we have nothing from Zechariah\nhimself; and if any other prophet appeared during the next\nhalf-century, his words have not survived. We are left to infer what\nwas the true condition of affairs, not less from this ominous silence\nthan from the hints which are given to us in the writings of \u201cMalachi,\u201d\nEzra and Nehemiah after the period was over. Beyond a partial attempt\nto rebuild the walls of the city in the reign of Artaxerxes I.,[988]\nthere seems to have been nothing to record. It was a period of\ndisillusion, disheartening and decay. The completion of the Temple did\nnot bring in the Messianic era. Zerubbabel, whom Haggai and Zechariah\nhad crowned as the promised King of Israel, died without reaching\nhigher rank than a minor satrapy in the Persian Empire, and even in\nthat he appears to have been succeeded by a Persian official.[989] The\nre-migrations from Babylon and elsewhere, which Zechariah predicted,\ndid not take place. The small population of Jerusalem were still\nharassed by the hostility, and their morale sapped by the\ninsidiousness, of their Samaritan neighbours: they were denied the\nstimulus, the purgation, the glory of a great persecution. Their\nPersian tyrants for the most part left them alone. The world left them\nalone. Nothing stirred in Palestine except the Samaritan intrigues.\nHistory rolled away westward, and destiny seemed to be settling on the\nGreeks. In 490 Miltiades defeated the Persians at Marathon. In 480\nThermopyl\u00e6 was fought and the Persian fleet broken at Salamis. In 479 a\nPersian army was destroyed at Plat\u00e6a, and Xerxes lost Europe and most\nof the Ionian coast. In 460 Athens sent an expedition to Egypt to\nassist the Egyptian revolt against Persia, and in 457 \u201cher slain fell\nin Cyprus, in Egypt, in Ph\u0153nicia, at Hali\u00e6, in \u00c6gina, and in Megara in\nthe same year.\u201d\n\nThus severely left to themselves and to the petty hostilities of their\nneighbours, the Jews appear to have sunk into a careless and sordid\nmanner of life. They entered the period, it is true, with some sense of\ntheir distinction.[990] In exile they had suffered God\u2019s anger,[991]\nand had been purged by it. But out of discipline often springs pride,\nand there is no subtler temptation of the human heart. The returned\nIsrael felt this to the quick, and it sorely unfitted them for\nencountering the disappointment and hardship which followed upon the\ncompletion of the Temple. The tide of hope, which rose to flood with\nthat consummation, ebbed rapidly away, and left God\u2019s people\nstruggling, like any ordinary tribe of peasants, with bad seasons and\nthe cruelty of their envious neighbours. Their pride was set on edge,\nand they fell, not as at other periods of disappointment into despair,\nbut into a bitter carelessness and a contempt of their duty to God.\nThis was a curious temper, and, so far as we know, new in Israel. It\nled them to despise both His love and His holiness.[992] They neglected\ntheir Temple dues, and impudently presented to their God polluted bread\nand blemished beasts which they would not have dared to offer to their\nPersian governor.[993] Like people like priest: the priesthood lost not\nreverence only, but decency and all conscience of their office.[994]\nThey _despised the Table of the Lord_, ceased to instruct the people\nand grew partial in judgment. As a consequence they became contemptible\nin the eyes of the community. Immorality prevailed among all classes:\n_every man dealt treacherously with his brother_.[995] Adultery,\nperjury, fraud and the oppression of the poor were very rife.\n\nOne particular fashion, in which the people\u2019s wounded pride spited\nitself, was the custom of marriage which even the best families\ncontracted with the half-heathen _people of the land_. Across Judah\nthere were scattered the descendants of those Jews whom Nebuchadrezzar\nhad not deemed worth removing to Babylon. Whether regarded from a\nsocial or a religious point of view, their fathers had been the dregs\nof the old community. Their own religion, cut off as they were from the\nmain body of Israel and scattered among the old heathen shrines of the\nland, must have deteriorated still further; but in all probability they\nhad secured for themselves the best portions of the vacant soil, and\nnow enjoyed a comfort and a stability of welfare far beyond that which\nwas yet attainable by the majority of the returned exiles. More\nnumerous than these dregs of ancient Jewry were the very mixed race of\nthe Samaritans. They possessed a rich land, which they had cultivated\nlong enough for many of their families to be settled in comparative\nwealth. With all these half-pagan Jews and Samaritans, the families of\nthe true Israel, as they regarded themselves, did not hesitate to form\nalliances, for in the precarious position of the colony, such alliances\nwere the surest way both to wealth and to political influence. How much\nthe Jews were mastered by their desire for them is seen from the fact\nthat, when the relatives of their half-heathen brides made it a\ncondition of the marriages that they should first put away their old\nwives, they readily did so. Divorce became very frequent, and great\nsuffering was inflicted on the native Jewish women.[996]\n\nSo the religious condition of Israel declined for nearly two\ngenerations, and then about 460 the Word of God, after long silence,\nbroke once more through a prophet\u2019s lips.\n\nWe call this prophet \u201cMalachi,\u201d following the error of an editor of\nhis book, who, finding it nameless, inferred or invented that name\nfrom its description of the priest as the \u201cMal\u0115\u2019ach,\u201d or _messenger,\nof the Lord of Hosts_.[997] But the prophet gave himself no name.\nWriting from the midst of a poor and persecuted group of the people,\nand attacking the authorities both of church and state, he preferred to\npublish his charge anonymously. His name was in _the Lord\u2019s own book of\nremembrance_.[998]\n\nThe unknown prophet addressed himself both to the sinners of his\npeople, and to those querulous adherents of Jehovah whom the success of\nthe sinners had tempted to despair in their service of God. His style\nshares the practical directness of his predecessors among the returned\nexiles. He takes up one point after another, and drives them home in a\nseries of strong, plain paragraphs of prose. But it is sixty years\nsince Haggai and Zechariah, and in the circumstances we have described,\na prophet could no longer come forward as a public inspirer of his\nnation. Prophecy seems to have been driven from public life, from the\nsudden enforcement of truth in the face of the people to the more\ndeliberate and ordered argument which marks the teacher who works in\nprivate. In the Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d there are many of the principles and\nmuch of the enthusiasm of the ancient Hebrew seer. But the discourse is\nbroken up into formal paragraphs, each upon the same academic model.\nFirst a truth is pronounced, or a charge made against the people; then\nwith the words _but ye will say_ the prophet states some possible\nobjection of his hearers, proceeds to answer it by detailed evidence,\nand only then drives home his truth, or his charge, in genuine\nprophetic fashion. To the student of prophecy this peculiarity of the\nbook is of the greatest interest, for it is no merely personal\nidiosyncrasy. We rather feel that prophecy is now assuming the temper\nof the teacher. The method is the commencement of that which later on\nbecomes the prevailing habit in Jewish literature. Just as with\nZephaniah we saw prophecy passing into Apocalypse, and with Habakkuk\ninto the speculation of the schools of Wisdom, so now in \u201cMalachi\u201d we\nperceive its transformation into the scholasticism of the Rabbis.\n\nBut the interest of this change of style must not prevent us from\nappreciating the genuine prophetic spirit of our book. Far more fully\nthan, for instance, that of Haggai, to the style of which its practical\nsimplicity is so akin, it enumerates the prophetic principles: the\neverlasting Love of Jehovah for Israel, the Fatherhood of Jehovah and\nHis Holiness, His ancient Ideals for Priesthood and People, the need of\na Repentance proved by deeds, the consequent Promise of Prosperity, the\nDay of the Lord, and Judgment between the evil and the righteous. Upon\nthe last of these the book affords a striking proof of the delinquency\nof the people during the last half-century, and in connection with it\nthe prophet introduces certain novel features. To Haggai and Zechariah\nthe great Tribulation had closed with the Exile and the rebuilding\nof the Temple: Israel stood on the margin of the Messianic age. But\nthe Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d proclaims the need of another judgment as\nemphatically as the older prophets had predicted the Babylonian doom.\n\u201cMalachi\u201d repeats their name for it, _the great and terrible Day of\nJehovah_. But he does not foresee it, as they did, in the shape of\na historical process. His description of it is pure Apocalypse\u2014_the\nfire of the smelter and the fuller\u2019s acid: the day that burns like\na furnace_, when all wickedness is as stubble, and all evil men are\ndevoured, but to the righteous _the Sun of Righteousness shall arise\nwith healing in His wings_, and they shall tread the wicked under\nfoot.[999] To this the prophet adds a novel promise. God is so much the\nGod of love,[1000] that before the Day comes He will give His people\nan opportunity of conversion. He will send them Elijah the prophet to\nchange their hearts, that He may be prevented from striking the land\nwith His Ban.\n\nIn one other point the book is original, and that is in its attitude\ntowards the heathen. Among the heathen, it boldly says, Jehovah is\nheld in higher reverence than among His own people.[1001] In such a\nstatement we can hardly fail to feel the influence upon Israel of their\ncontact, often close and personal, with their wise and mild tyrants\nthe Persians. We may emphasise the verse as the first note of that\nrecognition of the real religiousness of the heathen, which we shall\nfind swelling to such fulness and tenderness in the Book of Jonah.\n\nSuch are in brief the style and the principles of the Book of\n\u201cMalachi,\u201d whose separate prophecies we may now proceed to take up in\ndetail.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[987] Ezra iv. 6-23.\n\n[988] This is recorded in the Aramean document which has been\nincorporated in our Book of Ezra, and there is no reason to doubt its\nreality. In that document we have already found, in spite of its\ncomparatively late date, much that is accurate history. See above, p.\n212. And it is clear that, the Temple being finished, the Jews must\nhave drawn upon themselves the same religious envy of the Samaritans\nwhich had previously delayed the construction of the Temple. To meet\nit, what more natural than that the Jews should have attempted to raise\nthe walls of their city? It is almost impossible to believe that they\nwho had achieved the construction of the Temple in 516 should not, in\nthe next fifty years, make some effort to raise their fallen walls. And\nindeed Nehemiah\u2019s account of his own work almost necessarily implies\nthat they had done so, for what he did after 445 was not to build new\nwalls, but rather to repair shattered ones.\n\n[989] See above, p. 335, n. 970, and below, p. 354, on \u201cMal.\u201d i. 8.\n\n[990] Cf. Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, II., pp. 128-138, the best\naccount of this period.\n\n[991] \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 14.\n\n[992] \u201cMal.\u201d i. 2, 6; iii. 8 f.\n\n[993] _Id._ i. 7 f., 12-14.\n\n[994] _Id._ i. 6 f., ii.\n\n[995] _Id._ ii, 10.\n\n[996] \u201cMal.\u201d ii. 10-16.\n\n[997] For proof of this see above, pp. 331 f.\n\n[998] \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 16.\n\n[999] iii. 2, 19 ff. Heb., iv. 1 ff. Eng.\n\n[1000] iii. 6.\n\n[1001] i. 11.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVI\n\n _PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW_\n\n \u201cMALACHI\u201d i.\u2014iv.\n\n\nBeneath this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of\n\u201cMalachi.\u201d They contain many things of perennial interest and validity:\ntheir truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves.\nBut their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the\ndevelopment of prophecy _within_ the Law. Not _under_ the Law, be it\nobserved. For if one thing be more clear than another about \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d\nteaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet crushed by the\nlegalism which finally killed it within Israel. \u201cMalachi\u201d observes and\nenforces the demands of the Deuteronomic law under which his people\nhad lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces each of these\nto some spiritual principle, to some essential of religion in the\ncharacter of Israel\u2019s God, which is either doubted or neglected by his\ncontemporaries in their lax performance of the Law. That is why we may\nentitle his book Prophecy within the Law.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe essential principles of the religion of Israel which had been\nshaken or obscured by the delinquency of the people during the\nhalf-century after the rebuilding of the Temple were three\u2014the\ndistinctive Love of Jehovah for His people, His Holiness, and His\nRighteousness. The Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d takes up each of these in turn,\nand proves or enforces it according as the people have formally doubted\nit or in their carelessness done it despite.\n\n\n 1. GOD\u2019S LOVE FOR ISRAEL AND HATRED OF EDOM\n (Chap. i. 2-5).\n\nHe begins with God\u2019s Love, and in answer to the disappointed[1002]\npeople\u2019s cry, _Wherein hast Thou loved us?_ he does not, as the older\nprophets did, sweep the whole history of Israel, and gather proofs of\nJehovah\u2019s grace and unfailing guidance in all the great events from the\ndeliverance from Egypt to the deliverance from Babylon. But he confines\nhimself to a comparison of Israel with the Gentile nation, which was\nmost akin to Israel according to the flesh, their own brother Edom. It\nis possible, of course, to see in this a proof of our prophet\u2019s\nnarrowness, as contrasted with Amos or Hosea or the great Evangelist of\nthe Exile. But we must remember that out of all the history of Israel\n\u201cMalachi\u201d could not have chosen an instance which would more strongly\nappeal to the heart of his contemporaries. We have seen from the Book\nof Obadiah how ever since the beginning of the Exile Edom had come to\nbe regarded by Israel as their great antithesis.[1003] If we needed\nfurther proof of this we should find it in many Psalms of the Exile,\nwhich like the Book of Obadiah remember with bitterness the hostile\npart that Edom played in the day of Israel\u2019s calamity. The two nations\nwere utterly opposed in genius and character. Edom was a people of as\nunspiritual and self-sufficient a temper as ever cursed any of God\u2019s\nhuman creatures. Like their ancestor they were _profane_,[1004] without\nrepentance, humility or ideals, and almost without religion. Apart,\ntherefore, from the long history of war between the two peoples, it was\na true instinct which led Israel to regard their brother as\nrepresentative of that heathendom against which they had to realise\ntheir destiny in the world as God\u2019s own nation. In choosing the\ncontrast of Edom\u2019s fate to illustrate Jehovah\u2019s love for Israel,\n\u201cMalachi\u201d was not only choosing what would appeal to the passions of\nhis contemporaries, but what is the most striking and constant\nantithesis in the whole history of Israel: the absolutely diverse\ngenius and destiny of these two Semitic nations who were nearest\nneighbours and, according to their traditions, twin-brethren after the\nflesh. If we keep this in mind we shall understand Paul\u2019s use of the\nantithesis in the passage in which he clenches it by a quotation from\n\u201cMalachi\u201d: _as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I\nhated_.[1005] In these words the doctrine of the Divine election of\nindividuals appears to be expressed as absolutely as possible. But it\nwould be unfair to read the passage except in the light of Israel\u2019s\nhistory. In the Old Testament it is a matter of fact that the doctrine\nof the Divine preference of Israel to Esau appeared only after the\nrespective characters of the nations were manifested in history, and\nthat it grew more defined and absolute only as history discovered more\nof the fundamental contrast between the two in genius and\ndestiny.[1006] In the Old Testament, therefore, the doctrine is the\nresult, not of an arbitrary belief in God\u2019s bare fiat, but of\nhistorical experience; although, of course, the distinction which\nexperience proves is traced back, with everything else of good or evil\nthat happens, to the sovereign will and purpose of God. Nor let us\nforget that the Old Testament doctrine of election is of election to\nservice only. That is to say, the Divine intention in electing covers\nnot the elect individual or nation only, but the whole world and its\nneeds of God and His truth.\n\nThe event to which \u201cMalachi\u201d appeals as evidence for God\u2019s rejection\nof Edom is _the desolation_ of the latter\u2019s ancient _heritage_, _and_\nthe abandonment of it to the _jackals of the desert_. Scholars used\nto think that these vague phrases referred to some act of the Persian\nkings: some removal of the Edomites from the lands of the Jews in\norder to make room for the returned exiles.[1007] But \u201cMalachi\u201d says\nexpressly that it was Edom\u2019s own _heritage_ which was laid desolate.\nThis can only be Mount Esau or Se\u2019ir, and the statement that it was\ndelivered _to the jackals of the desert_ proves that the reference is\nto that same expulsion of Edom from their territory by the Nabatean\nArabs which we have already seen the Book of Obadiah relate about the\nbeginning of the Exile.[1008]\n\nBut it is now time to give in full the opening passage of \u201cMalachi,\u201d in\nwhich he appeals to this important event as proof of God\u2019s distinctive\nlove for Israel, and, \u201cMalachi\u201d adds, of His power beyond Israel\u2019s\nborder (\u201cMal.\u201d chap. i. 2-5).\n\n_I have loved you, saith Jehovah. But ye say, \u201cWherein hast Thou loved\nus?\u201d Is not Esau brother to Jacob?\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014and I have loved\nJacob and Esau have I hated. I have made his mountains desolate, and\ngiven his heritage to the jackals of the desert. Should _the people\nof_ Edom say,[1009] \u201cWe are destroyed, but we will rebuild the waste\nplaces,\u201d thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, They may build, but I will pull\ndown: men shall call them \u201cThe Border of Wickedness\u201d and \u201cThe People\nwith whom Jehovah is wroth for ever.\u201d And your eyes shall see it, and\nyourselves shall say, \u201cGreat is Jehovah beyond Israel\u2019s border.\u201d_\n\n\n 2. \u201cHONOUR THY FATHER\u201d (Chap. i. 6-14).\n\nFrom God\u2019s Love, which Israel have doubted, the prophet passes to His\nMajesty or Holiness, which they have wronged. Now it is very remarkable\nthat the relation of God to the Jews in which the prophet should see\nHis Majesty illustrated is not only His lordship over them but His\nFatherhood: _A son honours a father, and a servant his lord; but if I\nbe Father, where is My honour? and if I be Lord, where is there\nreverence for Me? saith Jehovah of Hosts_.[1010] We are so accustomed\nto associate with the Divine Fatherhood only ideas of love and pity\nthat the use of the relation to illustrate not love but Majesty, and\nthe setting of it in parallel to the Divine Kingship, may seem to us\nstrange. Yet this was very natural to Israel. In the old Semitic world,\neven to the human parent, honour was due before love. _Honour thy\nfather and thy mother_, said the Fifth Commandment; and when, after\nlong shyness to do so, Israel at last ventured to claim Jehovah as the\nFather of His people, it was at first rather with the view of\nincreasing their sense of His authority and their duty of reverencing\nHim, than with the view of bringing Him near to their hearts and\nassuring them of His tenderness. The latter elements, it is true, were\nnot absent from the conception. But even in the Psalter, in which we\nfind the most intimate and tender fellowship of the believer with God,\nthere is only one passage in which His love for His own is compared to\nthe love of a human father.[1011] And in the other very few passages of\nthe Old Testament where He is revealed or appealed to as the Father of\nthe nation, it is, with two exceptions,[1012] in order either to\nemphasise His creation of Israel or His discipline. So in\nJeremiah,[1013] and in an anonymous prophet of the same period perhaps\nas \u201cMalachi.\u201d[1014] This hesitation to ascribe to God the name of\nFather, and this severe conception of what Fatherhood meant, was\nperhaps needful for Israel in face of the sensuous ideas of the Divine\nFatherhood cherished by their heathen neighbours.[1015] But, however\nthis may be, the infrequency and austerity of Israel\u2019s conception of\nGod\u2019s Fatherhood, in contrast with that of Christianity, enables us to\nunderstand why \u201cMalachi\u201d should employ the relation as proof, not of\nthe Love, but of the Majesty and Holiness of Jehovah.\n\nThis Majesty and this Holiness have been wronged, he says, by low\nthoughts of God\u2019s altar, and by offering upon it, with untroubled\nconscience, cheap and blemished sacrifices. The people would have been\nashamed to present such to their Persian governor: how can God be\npleased with them? Better that sacrifice should cease than that such\nofferings should be presented in such a spirit! _Is there no one_,\ncries the prophet, _to close the doors_ of the Temple altogether, so\nthat _the altar_ smoke not _in vain_?\n\nThe passage shows us what a change has passed over the spirit of Israel\nsince prophecy first attacked the sacrificial ritual. We remember how\nAmos would have swept it all away as an abomination to God.[1016] So,\ntoo, Isaiah and Jeremiah. But their reason for this was very different\nfrom \u201cMalachi\u2019s.\u201d Their contemporaries were assiduous and lavish in\nsacrificing, and were devoted to the Temple and the ritual with a\nfanaticism which made them forget that Jehovah\u2019s demands upon His\npeople were righteousness and the service of the weak. But \u201cMalachi\u201d\ncondemns his generation for depreciating the Temple, and for being\nstingy and fraudulent in their offerings. Certainly the post-exilic\nprophet assumes a different attitude to the ritual from that of his\npredecessors in ancient Israel. They wished it all abolished, and\nplaced the chief duties of Israel towards God in civic justice and\nmercy. But he emphasises it as the first duty of the people towards\nGod, and sees in their neglect the reason of their misfortunes and the\ncause of their coming doom. In this change which has come over prophecy\nwe must admit the growing influence of the Law. From Ezekiel onwards\nthe prophets become more ecclesiastical and legal. And though at first\nthey do not become less ethical, yet the influence which was at work\nupon them was of such a character as was bound in time to engross their\ninterest, and lead them to remit the ethical elements of their religion\nto a place secondary to the ceremonial. We see symptoms of this even in\n\u201cMalachi,\u201d we shall find more in Joel, and we know how aggravated these\nsymptoms afterwards became in all the leaders of Jewish religion. At\nthe same time we ought to remember that this change of emphasis, which\nmany will think to be for the worse, was largely rendered necessary by\nthe change of temper in the people to whom the prophets ministered.\n\u201cMalachi\u201d found among his contemporaries a habit of religious\nperformance which was not only slovenly and indecent, but mean and\nfraudulent, and it became his first practical duty to attack this.\nMoreover the neglect of the Temple was not due to those spiritual\nconceptions of Jehovah and those moral duties He demanded, in the\ninterests of which the older prophets had condemned the ritual. At\nbottom the neglect of the Temple was due to the very same reasons as\nthe superstitious zeal and fanaticism in sacrificing which the older\nprophets had attacked\u2014false ideas, namely, of God Himself, and of what\nwas due to Him from His people. And on these grounds, therefore, we may\nsay that \u201cMalachi\u201d was performing for his generation as needful and as\nDivine a work as Amos and Isaiah had performed for theirs. Only, be it\nadmitted, the direction of \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d emphasis was more dangerous for\nreligion than that of the emphasis of Amos or Isaiah. How liable the\npractice he inculcated was to exaggeration and abuse is sadly proved in\nthe later history of his people: it was against that exaggeration,\ngrown great and obdurate through three centuries, that Jesus delivered\nHis most unsparing words.\n\n_A son honours a father, and a servant his lord. But if I am Father,\nwhere is My honour? and if I am Lord, where is reverence for Me? saith\nJehovah of Hosts to you, O priests, who despise My Name. Ye say, \u201cHow\nthen have we despised Thy Name?\u201d Ye are bringing polluted food to Mine\nAltar. Ye say, \u201cHow have we polluted Thee?\u201d[1017] By saying,[1018] \u201cThe\nTable of Jehovah may be despised\u201d; and when ye bring a blind _beast_ to\nsacrifice, \u201cNo harm!\u201d or when ye bring a lame or sick one, \u201cNo\nharm!\u201d[1019] Pray, take it to thy Satrap: will he be pleased with thee,\nor accept thy person? saith Jehovah of Hosts. But now, propitiate[1020]\nGod, that He may be gracious to us. When _things_ like this come from\nyour hands, can He accept your persons? saith Jehovah of Hosts. Who is\nthere among you to close the doors_ of the Temple altogether, _that ye\nkindle not Mine Altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah\nof Hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands. For from\nthe rising of the sun and to its setting My Name is glorified[1021]\namong the nations; and in every sacred place[1022] incense is offered\nto My Name, and a pure offering:[1023] for great is My Name among the\nnations, saith Jehovah of Hosts. But ye are profaning it, in that ye\nthink[1024] that the Table of the Lord is polluted, and[1025] its food\ncontemptible. And ye say, What a weariness! and ye sniff at it,[1026]\nsaith Jehovah of Hosts. _When_ ye bring what has been plundered,[1027]\nand the lame and the diseased, yea,_ when _ye_ so _bring an offering,\ncan I accept it with grace from your hands? saith Jehovah. Cursed be\nthe cheat in whose flock is a male_ beast _and he vows it,[1028] and\nslays for the Lord a miserable beast.[1029] For a great King am I,\nsaith Jehovah of Hosts, and My Name is reverenced among the nations._\n\nBefore we pass from this passage we must notice in it one very\nremarkable feature\u2014perhaps the most original contribution which the\nBook of \u201cMalachi\u201d makes to the development of prophecy. In contrast to\nthe irreverence of Israel and the wrong they do to Jehovah\u2019s Holiness,\nHe Himself asserts that not only is _His Name great and glorified among\nthe heathen, from the rising to the setting of the sun_, but that _in\nevery sacred place incense and a pure offering are offered to His\nName_. This is so novel a statement, and, we may truly say, so\nstartling, that it is not wonderful that the attempt should have been\nmade to interpret it, not of the prophet\u2019s own day, but of the\nMessianic age and the kingdom of Christ. So, many of the Christian\nFathers, from Justin and Iren\u00e6us to Theodoret and Augustine;[1030] so,\nour own Authorised Version, which boldly throws the verbs into the\nfuture; and so, many modern interpreters like Pusey, who declares that\nthe style is \u201ca vivid present such as is often used to describe the\nfuture; but the things spoken of show it to be future.\u201d All these take\nthe passage to be an anticipation of Christ\u2019s parables declaring the\nrejection of the Jews and ingathering of the Gentiles to the kingdom of\nheaven, and of the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the\nbleeding and defective offerings of the Jews were abrogated by the\nsacrifice of the Cross. But such an exegesis is only possible by\nperverting the text and misreading the whole argument of the prophet.\nNot only are the verbs of the original in the present tense\u2014so also in\nthe early versions\u2014but the prophet is obviously contrasting the\ncontempt of God\u2019s own people for Himself and His institutions with the\nreverence paid to His Name among the heathen. It is not the mere\nquestion of there being righteous people in every nation, well-pleasing\nto Jehovah because of their lives. The very sacrifices of the heathen\nare pure and acceptable to Him. Never have we had in prophecy, even the\nmost far-seeing and evangelical, a statement so generous and so\ncatholic as this. Why it should appear only now in the history of\nprophecy is a question we are unable to answer with certainty. Many\nhave seen in it the result of Israel\u2019s intercourse with their tolerant\nand religious masters the Persians. None of the Persian kings had up to\nthis time persecuted the Jews, and numbers of pious and large-minded\nIsraelites must have had opportunity of acquaintance with the very pure\ndoctrines of the Persian religion, among which it is said that there\nwas already numbered the recognition of true piety in men of all\nreligions.[1031] If Paul derived from his Hellenic culture the\nknowledge which made it possible for him to speak as he did in Athens\nof the religiousness of the Gentiles, it was just as probable that Jews\nwho had come within the experience of a still purer Aryan faith should\nutter an even more emphatic acknowledgment that the One True God had\nthose who served Him in spirit and in truth all over the world. But,\nwhatever foreign influences may have ripened such a faith in Israel, we\nmust not forget that its roots were struck deep in the native soil of\ntheir religion. From the first they had known their God as a God of a\ngrace so infinite that it was impossible it should be exhausted on\nthemselves. If His righteousness, as Amos showed, was over all the\nSyrian states, and His pity and His power to convert, as Isaiah showed,\ncovered even the cities of Ph\u0153nicia, the great Evangelist of the Exile\ncould declare that He quenched not the smoking wicks of the dim heathen\nfaiths.\n\nAs interesting, however, as the origin of \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d attitude to\nthe heathen, are two other points about it. In the first place, it is\nremarkable that it should occur, especially in the form of emphasising\nthe purity of heathen sacrifices, in a book which lays such heavy\nstress upon the Jewish Temple and ritual. This is a warning to us not\nto judge harshly the so-called legal age of Jewish religion, nor to\ndespise the prophets who have come under the influence of the Law. And\nin the second place, we perceive in this statement a step towards the\nfuller acknowledgment of Gentile religiousness which we find in the\nBook of Jonah. It is strange that none of the post-exilic Psalms strike\nthe same note. They often predict the conversion of the heathen; but\nthey do not recognise their native reverence and piety. Perhaps the\nreason is that in a body of song, collected for the national service,\nsuch a feature would be out of place.\n\n\n 3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE (Chap. ii. 1-9).\n\nIn the third section of his book \u201cMalachi\u201d addresses himself to the\npriests. He charges them not only with irreverence and slovenliness in\ntheir discharge of the Temple service\u2014for this he appears to intend by\nthe phrase _filth of your feasts_\u2014but with the neglect of their\nintellectual duties to the people. _The lips of a priest guard\nknowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the\nAngel_\u2014the revealing Angel\u2014_of Jehovah of Hosts_. Once more, what a\nremarkable saying to come from the legal age of Israel\u2019s religion, and\nfrom a writer who so emphasises the ceremonial law! In all the range of\nprophecy there is not any more in harmony with the prophetic ideal. How\nneeded it is in our own age!\u2014needed against those two extremes of\nreligion from which we suffer, the limitation of the ideal of\npriesthood to the communication of a magic grace, and its evaporation\nin a vague religiosity from which the intellect is excluded as if it\nwere perilous, worldly and devilish.[1032] \u201cSurrender of the intellect\u201d\nindeed! This is the burial of the talent in the napkin, and, as in the\nparable of Christ, it is still in our day preached and practised by the\nmen of one talent. Religion needs all the brains we poor mortals can\nput into it. There is a priesthood of knowledge, a priesthood of the\nintellect, says \u201cMalachi,\u201d and he makes this a large part of God\u2019s\ncovenant with Levi. Every priest of God is a priest of truth; and it is\nvery largely by the Christian ministry\u2019s neglect of their intellectual\nduties that so much irreligion prevails. As in \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d day, so now,\n\u201cthe laity take hurt and hindrance by our negligence.\u201d[1033] And just\nas he points out, so with ourselves, the consequence is the growing\nindifference with which large bodies of the Christian ministry are\nregarded by the thoughtful portions both of our labouring and\nprofessional classes. Were the ministers of all the Churches to awake\nto their ideal in this matter, there would surely come a very great\nrevival of religion among us.\n\n_And now this Charge for you, O priests: If ye hear not, and lay not to\nheart to give glory to My Name, saith Jehovah of Hosts, I will send\nupon you the curse, and will curse your blessings\u2014yea, I have cursed\nthem[1034]\u2014for none of you layeth it to heart. Behold, I ... you\n...[1035] and I will scatter filth in your faces, the filth of your\nfeasts....[1036] And ye shall know that I have sent to you this Charge,\nto be My covenant with Levi,[1037] saith Jehovah of Hosts. My covenant\nwas with him life and peace,[1038] and I gave them to him, fear and he\nfeared Me, and humbled himself before My Name.[1039] The revelation of\ntruth was in his mouth, and wickedness was not found upon his lips. In\nwhole-heartedness[1040] and integrity he walked with Me, and turned\nmany from iniquity. For the lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men\nseek instruction[1041] from his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah\nof Hosts. But ye have turned from the way, ye have tripped up many by\nthe Torah, ye have spoiled the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of\nHosts. And I on My part[1042] have made you contemptible to all the\npeople, and abased in proportion as ye kept not My ways and had respect\nof persons in_ delivering your _Torah_.\n\n\n 4. THE CRUELTY OF DIVORCE (Chap. ii. 10-17).\n\nIn his fourth section, upon his countrymen\u2019s frequent divorce of their\nnative wives in order to marry into the influential families of their\nhalf-heathen neighbours,[1043] \u201cMalachi\u201d makes another of those wide\nand spiritual utterances which so distinguish his prophecy and redeem\nhis age from the charge of legalism that is so often brought against\nit. To him the Fatherhood of God is not merely a relation of power\nand authority, requiring reverence from the nation. It constitutes\nthe members of the nation one close brotherhood, and against this\ndivorce is a crime and unnatural cruelty. Jehovah makes the _wife of a\nman\u2019s youth his mate_ for life _and his wife by covenant_. He _hates\ndivorce_, and His altar is so wetted by the tears of the wronged women\nof Israel that the gifts upon it are no more acceptable in His sight.\nNo higher word on marriage was spoken except by Christ Himself. It\nbreathes the spirit of our Lord\u2019s utterance: if we were sure of the\ntext of ver. 15, we might almost say that it anticipated the letter.\nCertain verses, 11-13_a_, which disturb the argument by bringing in the\nmarriages with heathen wives are omitted in the following translation,\nand will be given separately.\n\n_Have we not all One Father? Hath not One God created us? Why then are\nwe unfaithful to one another, profaning the covenant of our\nfathers?...[1044] Ye cover with tears the altar of Jehovah, with\nweeping and with groaning, because respect is no longer had to the\noffering, and acceptable gifts are not taken from your hands. And ye\nsay, \u201cWhy?\u201d Because Jehovah has been witness between thee and the wife\nof thy youth, with whom thou hast broken faith, though she is thy\nmate[1045] and thy wife by covenant. And ...[1046] And what is the one\nseeking? A Divine Seed. Take heed, then, to your spirit, and be not\nunfaithful to the wife of thy youth.[1047] For I hate divorce, saith\nJehovah, God of Israel, and that a man cover his clothing[1048] with\ncruelty, saith Jehovah of Hosts. So take heed to your spirit, and deal\nnot faithlessly._\n\nThe verses omitted in the above translation treat of the foreign\nmarriages, which led to this frequent divorce by the Jews of their\nnative wives. So far, of course, they are relevant to the subject\nof the passage. But they obviously disturb its argument, as already\npointed out.[1049] They have nothing to do with the principle from\nwhich it starts that Jehovah is the Father of the whole of Israel.\nRemove them and the awkward clause in ver. 13_a_, by which some editor\nhas tried to connect them with the rest of the paragraph, and the\nlatter runs smoothly. The motive of their later addition is apparent,\nif not justifiable. Here they are by themselves:\u2014\n\n_Judah was faithless, and abomination was practised in Israel[1050],\nand in Jerusalem, for Judah hath defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah,\nwhich was dear to Him, and hath married the daughter of a strange\ngod. May Jehovah cut off from the man, who doeth this, witness and\nchampion[1051] from the tents of Jacob, and offerer of sacrifices to\nJehovah of Hosts._[1052]\n\n\n 5. \u201cWHERE IS THE GOD OF JUDGMENT?\u201d\n\n(Chap. ii. 17\u2014iii. 5).\n\nIn this section \u201cMalachi\u201d turns from the sinners of his people to those\nwho weary Jehovah with the complaint that sin is successful, or, as\nthey put it, _Every one that does evil is good in the eyes of Jehovah,\nand He delighteth in them_; and again, _Where is the God of Judgment?_\nThe answer is, The Lord Himself shall come. His Angel shall prepare His\nway before Him, and suddenly shall the Lord come to His Temple. His\ncoming shall be for judgment, terrible and searching. Its first object\n(note the order) shall be the cleansing of the priesthood, that proper\nsacrifices may be established, and its second the purging of the\nimmorality of the people. Mark that although the coming of the Angel is\nsaid to precede that of Jehovah Himself, there is the same blending of\nthe two as we have seen in previous accounts of angels.[1053] It is\nuncertain whether this section closes with ver. 5 or 6: the latter goes\nequally well with it and with the following section.\n\n_Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words; and ye say, \u201cIn what have we\nwearied_ Him _?\u201d In that ye say, \u201cEvery one that does evil is good in\nthe eyes of Jehovah, and He delighteth in them\u201d; or else, \u201cWhere is the\nGod of Judgment?\u201d Behold, I will send My Angel, to prepare the way\nbefore Me, and suddenly shall come to His Temple the Lord whom ye seek\nand the Angel of the Covenant whom ye desire. Behold, He comes! saith\nJehovah of Hosts. But who may bear the day of His coming, and who stand\nwhen He appears? For He is like the fire of the smelter and the acid of\nthe fullers. He takes His seat to smelt and to purge;[1054] and He will\npurge the sons of Levi, and wash them out like gold or silver, and they\nshall be to Jehovah bringers of an offering in righteousness. And the\noffering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to Jehovah, as in the\ndays of old and as in long past years. And I will come near you to\njudgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and the\nadulterers and the perjurers, and against those who wrong the hireling\nin his wage, and the widow and the orphan, and oppress the stranger,\nand fear not Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts._\n\n\n 6. REPENTANCE BY TITHES (Chap. iii. 6-12).\n\nThis section ought perhaps to follow on to the preceding. Those whom it\nblames for not paying the Temple tithes may be the sceptics addressed\nin the previous section, who have stopped their dues to Jehovah out of\nsheer disappointment that He does nothing. And ver. 6, which goes well\nwith either section, may be the joint between the two. However this\nbe, the new section enforces the need of the people\u2019s repentance and\nreturn to God, if He is to return to them. And when they ask, how are\nthey to return, \u201cMalachi\u201d plainly answers, By the payment of the tithes\nthey have not paid. In withholding these they robbed God, and to this,\ntheir crime, are due the locusts and bad seasons which have afflicted\nthem. In our temptation to see in this a purely legal spirit, let us\nremember that the neglect to pay the tithes was due to a religious\ncause, unbelief in Jehovah, and that the return to belief in Him could\nnot therefore be shown in a more practical way than by the payment of\ntithes. This is not prophecy subject to the Law, but prophecy employing\nthe means and vehicles of grace with which the Law at that time\nprovided the people.\n\n_For I Jehovah have not changed, but ye sons of Jacob have not done\nwith (?).[1055] In the days of your fathers ye turned from My statutes\nand did not keep them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, saith\nJehovah of Hosts. But you say, \u201cHow then shall we return?\u201d Can a man\nrob[1056] God? yet ye are robbing Me. But ye say, \u201cIn what have we\nrobbed Thee?\u201d In the tithe and the tribute.[1057] With the curse are ye\ncursed, and yet Me ye are robbing, the whole people of you. Bring in\nthe whole tithe to the storehouse, that there may be provision[1058] in\nMy House, and pray, prove Me in this, saith Jehovah of Hosts\u2014whether\nI will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour blessing\nupon you till there is no more need. And I will check for you the\ndevourer,[1059] and he shall not destroy for you the fruit of the\nground, nor the vine in the field miscarry, saith Jehovah of Hosts. And\nall nations shall call you happy, for ye shall be a land of delight,\nsaith Jehovah of Hosts._\n\n\n 7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME\n (Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., iii. 13\u2014iv. 2 Eng.).\n\nThis is another charge to the doubters among the pious remnant of\nIsrael, who, seeing the success of the wicked, said it is vain to\nserve God. Deuteronomy was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if\nmen sinned they decayed, if they were righteous they prospered. How\ndifferent were the facts of experience! The evil men succeeded: the\ngood won no gain by their goodness, nor did their mourning for the\nsins of their people work any effect. Bitterest of all, they had to\ncongratulate wickedness in high places, and Jehovah Himself suffered\nit to go unpunished. _Such things_, says \u201cMalachi,\u201d _spake they that\nfeared God to each other_\u2014tempted thereto by the dogmatic form of their\nreligion, and forgetful of all that Jeremiah and the Evangelist of the\nExile had taught them of the value of righteous sufferings. Nor does\n\u201cMalachi\u201d remind them of this. His message is that the Lord remembers\nthem, has their names written before Him, and when the day of His\naction comes they shall be separated from the wicked and spared. This\nis simply to transfer the fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy to\nthe future and to another dispensation. Prophecy still works within the\nLaw.\n\nThe Apocalypse of this last judgment is one of the grandest in all\nScripture. To the wicked it shall be a terrible fire, root and branch\nshall they be burned out, but to the righteous a fair morning of God,\nas when dawn comes to those who have been sick and sleepless through\nthe black night, and its beams bring healing, even as to the popular\nbelief of Israel it was the rays of the morning sun which distilled the\ndew.[1060] They break into life and energy, like young calves leaping\nfrom the dark pen into the early sunshine. To this morning landscape a\ngrim figure is added. They shall tread down the wicked and the arrogant\nlike ashes beneath their feet.\n\n_Your words are hard upon Me, saith Jehovah. Ye say, \u201cWhat have we\nsaid against Thee?\u201d Ye have said, \u201cIt is vain to serve God,\u201d and \u201cWhat\ngain is it to us to have kept His charge, or to have walked in funeral\ngarb before Jehovah of Hosts? Even now we have got to congratulate the\narrogant; yea, the workers of wickedness are fortified; yea, they tempt\nGod and escape!\u201d Such things[1061] spake they that fear Jehovah to each\nother. But Jehovah gave ear and heard, and a book of remembrance[1062]\nwas written before Him about those who fear Jehovah, and those who keep\nin mind[1063] His Name. And they shall be Mine own property, saith\nJehovah of Hosts, in the day when I rise to action,[1064] and I will\nspare them even as a man spares his son that serves him. And ye shall\nonce more see_ the difference _between righteous and wicked, between\nhim that serves God and him that does not serve Him._\n\n_For, lo! the day is coming that shall burn like a furnace, and all the\noverweening and every one that works wickedness shall be as stubble,\nand the day that is coming shall devour them, saith Jehovah of Hosts,\nso that there be left them neither root nor branch. But to you that\nfear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in His\nwings, and ye shall go forth and leap[1065] like calves of the\nstall.[1066] And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as\nashes[1067] beneath the soles of your feet, in the day that I_ begin to\n_do, saith Jehovah of Hosts._\n\n\n 8. THE RETURN OF ELIJAH\n (Chap. iii. 22-24 Heb., iv. 3-5 Eng.).\n\nWith his last word the prophet significantly calls upon the people to\nremember the Law. This is their one hope before the coming of the great\nand terrible day of the Lord. But, in order that the Law may have full\neffect, Prophecy will be sent to bring it home to the hearts of the\npeople\u2014Prophecy in the person of her founder and most drastic\nrepresentative. Nothing could better gather up than this conjunction\ndoes that mingling of Law and of Prophecy which we have seen to be so\ncharacteristic of the work of \u201cMalachi.\u201d Only we must not overlook the\nfact that \u201cMalachi\u201d expects this prophecy, which with the Law is to\nwork the conversion of the people, not in the continuance of the\nprophetic succession by the appearance of original personalities,\ndeveloping further the great principles of their order, but in the\nreturn of the first prophet Elijah. This is surely the confession of\nProphecy that the number of her servants is exhausted and her message\nto Israel fulfilled. She can now do no more for the people than she has\ndone. But she will summon up her old energy and fire in the return of\nher most powerful personality, and make one grand effort to convert the\nnation before the Lord come and strike it with judgment.\n\n_Remember the Torah of Moses, My servant, with which I charged him in\nHoreb for all Israel: statutes and judgments. Lo! I am sending to you\nElijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of\nJehovah. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and\nthe heart of the sons to their fathers, ere I come and strike the land\nwith the Ban._\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cMalachi\u201d makes this promise of the Law in the dialect of Deuteronomy:\n_statutes and judgments with which Jehovah charged Moses for Israel_.\nBut the Law he enforces is not that which God delivered to Moses on the\nplains of Shittim, but that which He gave him in Mount Horeb. And so\nit came to pass. In a very few years after \u201cMalachi\u201d prophesied Ezra\nthe Scribe brought from Babylon the great Levitical Code, which appears\nto have been arranged there, while the colony in Jerusalem were still\norganising their life under the Deuteronomic legislation. In 444 B.C.\nthis Levitical Code, along with Deuteronomy, became by covenant between\nthe people and their God their Canon and Law. And in the next of our\nprophets, Joel, we shall find its full influence at work.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1002] See above, p. 343.\n\n[1003] See above, Chapter XIV. on \u201cEdom and Israel.\u201d\n\n[1004] Heb. xii. 16.\n\n[1005] Romans ix. 13. The citation is from the LXX.: \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f38\u03b1\u03ba\u1f7c\u03b2 \u1f20\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1,\n\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f28\u03c3\u03b1\u1fe6 \u1f10\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1.\n\n[1006] This was mainly _after_ the beginning of exile. Shortly before\nthat Deut. xxiii. 7 says: _Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is\nthy brother_.\n\n[1007] So even so recently as 1888, Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_,\nII., p. 112.\n\n[1008] See above, p. 169. This interpretation is there said to be\nWellhausen\u2019s; but Cheyne, in a note contributed to the _Z.A.T.W._,\n1894, p. 142, points out that Gr\u00e4tz, in an article \u201cDie Anf\u00e4nge\nder Nabat\u00e4er-Herrschaft\u201d in the _Monatschrift f\u00fcr Wissenschaft u.\nGeschichte des Judenthums_, 1875, pp. 60-66, had already explained\n\u201cMal.\u201d i. 1-5 as describing the conquest of Edom by the Nabateans. This\nis adopted by Buhl in his _Gesch. der Edomiter_, p. 79.\n\n[1009] The verb in the feminine indicates that the population of Edom\nis meant.\n\n[1010] i. 6.\n\n[1011] Psalm ciii. 9. In Psalm lxxiii. 15 believers are called _His\nchildren_; but elsewhere sonship is claimed only for the king\u2014ii. 7,\nlxxxix. 27 f.\n\n[1012] Hosea xi. 1 ff. (though even here the idea of discipline is\npresent) and Isa. lxiii. 16.\n\n[1013] iii. 4.\n\n[1014] Isa. lxiv. 8, cf. Deut. xxxii. 11 where the discipline of\nIsrael by Jehovah, shaking them out of their desert circumstance\nand tempting them to their great career in Palestine, is likened to\nthe father-eagle\u2019s training of his new-fledged brood to fly: A.V.\nmother-eagle.\n\n[1015] Cf. Cheyne, _Origin of the Psalter_, p. 305, n. O.\n\n[1016] Vol. I., Chap. IX.\n\n[1017] Or used polluted things with respect to Thee. For similar\nconstruction see Zech. vii. 5: \u05e6\u05de\u05ea\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9. This in answer to Wellhausen,\nwho, on the ground that the phrase gives \u05d2\u05d0\u05dc a wrong object and\ndestroys the connection, deletes it. Further he takes \u05de\u05d2\u05d0\u05dc, not in the\nsense of pollution, but as equivalent to \u05e0\u05d1\u05d6\u05d4, _despised_.\n\n[1018] Obviously _in their hearts = thinking_.\n\n[1019] LXX. _is there no harm?_\n\n[1020] _Pacify the face of_, as in Zechariah.\n\n[1021] So LXX. Heb. _is great_, but the phrase is probably written by\nmistake from the instance further on: _is glorified_ could scarcely\nhave been used in the very literal version of the LXX. unless it had\nbeen found in the original.\n\n[1022]\u200e \u05de\u05e7\u05d5\u05dd, here to be taken in the sense it bears in Arabic of\n_sacred place_. See on Zeph. ii. 11: above, p. 64, n. 159.\n\n[1023] Wellhausen deletes \u05de\u05d2\u05e9 as a gloss on \u05de\u05e7\u05d8\u05e8, and the vau before\n\u05de\u05e0\u05d7\u05d4.\n\n[1024] Heb. _say_.\n\n[1025] Heb. also has \u05e0\u05d9\u05d1\u05d5, found besides only in Keri of Isa. lvii. 19.\nBut Robertson Smith (_O.T.J.C._, 2, p. 444) is probably right in\nconsidering this an error for \u05e0\u05d1\u05d6\u05d4, which has kept its place after the\ncorrection was inserted.\n\n[1026] This clause is obscure, and comes in awkwardly before that which\nfollows it. Wellhausen omits.\n\n[1027]\u200e \u05d2\u05b8\u05bc\u05d6\u05d5\u05bc\u05dc. Wellhausen emends \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d4\u05b8\u05e2\u05b4\u05d5\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8 borrowing the first three\nletters from the previous word. LXX. \u1f01\u03c1\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1.\n\n[1028] LXX.\n\n[1029] Cf. Lev. iii. 1, 6.\n\n[1030] Quoted by Pusey, _in loco_.\n\n[1031] See Cheyne, _Origin of the Psalter_, 292 and 305 f.\n\n[1032] _Isaiah i.\u2014xxxix._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible), p. 188.\n\n[1033] See most admirable remarks on this subject in Archdeacon\nWilson\u2019s _Essays and Addresses_, No. III. \u201cThe Need of giving Higher\nBiblical Teaching, and Instruction on the Fundamental Questions of\nReligion and Christianity.\u201d London: Macmillan, 1887.\n\n[1034] Doubtful. LXX. adds \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03bd \u03b5\u1f50\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd \u1f51\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u1f70\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba\n\u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f10\u03bd \u1f51\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd: obvious redundancy, if not mere dittography.\n\n[1035] An obscure phrase, \u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b0\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d2\u05b9\u05bc\u05d3\u05b5\u05e2\u05b7 \u05dc\u05b8\u05db\u05b6\u05dd \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d4\u05b7\u05d6\u05b6\u05e8\u05b7\u05e2, _Behold, I rebuke you\nthe seed_. LXX. _Behold_, _I separate from you the arm_ or _shoulder_,\nreading \u05d6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b9\u05e2\u05b7 for \u05d6\u05b6\u05e8\u05b7\u05e2 and perhaps \u05d2\u05b9\u05bc\u05d3\u05b5\u05e2\u05b7 for \u05d2\u05b9\u05bc\u05e2\u05b5\u05e8, both of which readings\nWellhausen adopts, and Ewald the former. The reference may be to the\narm of the priest raised in blessing. Orelli reads _seed = posterity_.\nIt may mean the whole _seed_ or _class_ or _kind_ of the priests. The\nnext clause tempts one to suppose that \u05d0\u05ea\u05be\u05d4\u05d6\u05e8\u05e2 contains the verb of\nthis one, as if scattering something.\n\n[1036] Heb. \u05d5\u05b0\u05e0\u05b8\u05e9\u05b8\u05b8\u05c2\u05d0 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05b0\u05db\u05b6\u05dd \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b8\u05d9\u05d5, _and one shall bear you to it_.\nHitzig: filth shall be cast on them, and they on the filth.\n\n[1037] Others would render _My covenant being with Levi_. Wellhausen:\n_for My covenant was with Levi_. But this new Charge or covenant seems\ncontrasted with a former covenant in the next verse.\n\n[1038] Num. xxv. 12.\n\n[1039] This sentence is a literal translation of the Hebrew. With other\npunctuation Wellhausen renders _My covenant was with him, life and\npeace I gave them to him, fear..._\n\n[1040] Or _peace_, \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd.\n\n[1041] Or _revelation_, Torah.\n\n[1042]\u200e \u05d5\u05b0\u05e0\u05b7\u05dd\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9: cf. Amos iv.\n\n[1043] See above, p. 344.\n\n[1044] Here occur the two verses and a clause, 11-13_a_, upon the\nforeign marriages, which seem to be an intrusion.\n\n[1045] See Vol. I., p. 259.\n\n[1046] Heb. literally: _And not one did, and a remnant of spirit was\nhis_; which (1) A.V. renders: _And did not he make one? Yet he had the\nresidue of the spirit_, which Pusey accepts and applies to Adam and\nEve, interpreting the second clause as _the breath of life_, by which\nAdam _became a living soul_ (Gen. ii. 7). In Gen. i. 27 Adam and Eve\nare called one. In that case the meaning would be that the law of\nmarriage was prior to that of divorce, as in the words of our Lord,\nMatt. xix. 4-6. (2) The Hebrew might be rendered, _Not one has done\nthis who had any spirit left in him_. So Hitzig and Orelli. In that\ncase the following clauses of the verse are referred to Abraham. _\u201cBut\nwhat about the One?\u201d_ (LXX. insert _ye say_ after _But_)\u2014the one who\ndid put away his wife. Answer: _He was seeking a Divine seed_. The\nobjection to this interpretation is that Abraham did not cast off the\nwife of his youth, Sarah, but the foreigner Hagar. (3) Ewald made a\nvery different proposal: _And has not One created them, and all the\nSpirit_ (cf. Zeph. i. 4) _is His? And what doth the One seek? A Divine\nseed._ So Reinke. Similarly Kirkpatrick (_Doct. of the Proph._, p.\n502): _And did not One make_[you both]_? And why_ [did]_the One _[do\nso]_? Seeking a goodly seed_. (4) Wellhausen goes further along the\nsame line. Reading \u05d4\u05dc\u05d0 for \u05d5\u05dc\u05d0, and \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05d0\u05e8 for \u05d5\u05e9\u05d0\u05e8, and \u05dc\u05e0\u05d5 for \u05dc\u05d5, he\ntranslates: _Hath not the same God created and sustained your (? our)\nbreath? And what does He desire? A seed of God._\n\n[1047] Literally: _let none be unfaithful to the wife of thy youth_,\na curious instance of the Hebrew habit of mixing the pronominal\nreferences. Wellhausen\u2019s emendation is unnecessary.\n\n[1048] See Gesenius and Ewald for Arabic analogies for the use of\nclothing = wife.\n\n[1049] See above, p. 340.\n\n[1050] Wellhausen omits.\n\n[1051] Heb. \u05e2\u05b5\u05e8 \u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b9\u05e0\u05b6\u05d4, _caller and answerer_. But LXX. read \u05e2\u05d3,\n_witness_ (see iii. 5), though it pointed it differently.\n\n[1052] 13_a_, _But secondly ye do this_, is the obvious addition of the\neditor in order to connect his intrusion with what follows.\n\n[1053] See above, pp. 311, 313 f.\n\n[1054] Delete _silver_: the longer LXX. text shows how easily it was\nadded.\n\n[1055] _Made an end of_, reading the verb as Piel (Orelli). LXX.\n_refrain from_. _Your sins_ are understood, the sins which have always\ncharacterised the people. LXX. connects the opening of the next verse\nwith this, and with a different reading of the first word translates\n_from the sins of your fathers_.\n\n[1056] Heb. \u05e7\u05d1\u05e2, only here and Prov. xxii. 32. LXX. read \u05e2\u05e7\u05d1,\n_supplant_, _cheat_, which Wellhausen adopts.\n\n[1057]\u200e \u05ea\u05b0\u05bc\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc\u05de\u05b8\u05d4, _the heave offering_, the tax or tribute given to\nthe sanctuary or priests and associates with the tithes, as here in\nDeut. xii. 11, to be eaten by the offerer (_ib._ 17), but in Ezekiel by\nthe priests (xliv. 30); taken by the people and the Levites to the\nTemple treasury for the priests (Neh. x. 38, xii. 44): corn, wine and\noil. In the Priestly Writing it signifies the part of each sacrifice\nwhich was the priests\u2019 due. Ezekiel also uses it of the part of the\nHoly Land that fell to the prince and priests.\n\n[1058]\u200e \u05d8\u05b5\u05e8\u05b6\u05e3 in its later meaning: cf. Job xxiv. 5; Prov. xxxi. 15.\n\n[1059] _I.e._ locust.\n\n[1060] _A dew of lights._ See _Isaiah i.\u2014xxxix._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible),\npp. 448 f.\n\n[1061] So LXX.; Heb. _then_.\n\n[1062] Ezek. xiii. 9.\n\n[1063]\u200e \u05d7\u05e9\u05d1, _to think_, _plan_, has much the same meaning as here\nin Isa. xiii. 17, xxxiii. 8, liii. 3.\n\n[1064] Heb. _when I am doing_; but in the sense in which the word is\nused of Jehovah\u2019s decisive and final doing, Psalms xx., xxxii., etc.\n\n[1065] Hab. i. 8.\n\n[1066] See note to Amos vi. 4: Vol. I., p. 174, n. 3.\n\n[1067] Or _dust_.\n\n\n\n\n _JOEL_\n\n\n\n\n _The Day of Jehovah is great and very awful, and who may abide it?_\n\n _But now the oracle of Jehovah\u2014Turn ye to Me with all your heart, and\n with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. And rend your hearts\n and not your garments, and turn to Jehovah your God, for gracious and\n merciful is He, long-suffering and abounding in love._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVII\n\n _THE BOOK OF JOEL_\n\n\nIn the criticism of the Book of Joel there exist differences of\nopinion\u2014upon its date, the exact reference of its statements and its\nrelation to parallel passages in other prophets\u2014as wide as even those\nby which the Book of Obadiah has been assigned to every century between\nthe tenth and the fourth before Christ.[1068] As in the case of\nObadiah, the problem is not entangled with any doctrinal issue or\nquestion of accuracy; but while we saw that Obadiah was not involved in\nthe central controversy of the Old Testament, the date of the Law, not\na little in Joel turns upon the latter. And, besides, certain\ndescriptions raise the large question between a literal and an\nallegorical interpretation. Thus the Book of Joel carries the student\nfurther into the problems of Old Testament Criticism, and forms an even\nmore excellent introduction to the latter, than does the Book of\nObadiah.\n\n\n 1. THE DATE OF THE BOOK.\n\nIn the history of prophecy the Book of Joel must be either very early\nor very late, and with few exceptions the leading critics place it\neither before 800 B.C. or after 500. So great a difference is due to\nmost substantial reasons. Unlike every other prophet, except Haggai,\n\u201cMalachi\u201d and \u201cZechariah\u201d ix.\u2014xiv., Joel mentions neither Assyria,\nwhich emerged upon the prophetic horizon about 760,[1069] nor the\nBabylonian Empire, which had fallen by 537. The presumption is that he\nwrote before 760 or after 537. Unlike all the prophets, too,[1070] Joel\ndoes not charge his people with civic or national sins; nor does his\nbook bear any trace of the struggle between the righteous and\nunrighteous in Israel, nor of that between the spiritual worshippers of\nJehovah and the idolaters. The book addresses an undivided nation, who\nknow no God but Jehovah; and again the presumption is that Joel wrote\nbefore Amos and his successors had started the spiritual antagonisms\nwhich rent Israel in twain, or after the Law had been accepted by the\nwhole people under Nehemiah.[1071] The same wide alternative is\nsuggested by the style and phraseology. Joel\u2019s Hebrew is simple and\ndirect. Either he is an early writer, or imitates early writers. His\nbook contains a number of phrases and verses identical, or nearly\nidentical, with those of prophets from Amos to \u201cMalachi.\u201d Either they\nall borrowed from Joel, or he borrowed from them.[1072]\n\nOf this alternative modern criticism at first preferred the earlier\nsolution, and dated Joel before Amos. So Credner in his Commentary in\n1831, and following him Hitzig, Bleek, Ewald, Delitzsch, Keil, Kuenen\n(up to 1864),[1073] Pusey and others. So, too, at first some living\ncritics of the first rank, who, like Kuenen, have since changed their\nopinion. And so, even still, Kirkpatrick (on the whole), Von Orelli,\nRobertson,[1074] Stanley Leathes and Sinker.[1075] The reasons which\nthese scholars have given for the early date of Joel are roughly as\nfollows.[1076] His book occurs among the earliest of the Twelve: while\nit is recognised that the order of these is not strictly chronological,\nit is alleged that there is a division between the pre-exilic and\npost-exilic prophets, and that Joel is found among the former. The\nvagueness of his representations in general, and of his pictures of the\nDay of Jehovah in particular, is attributed to the simplicity of the\nearlier religion of Israel, and to the want of that analysis of its\nleading conceptions which was the work of later prophets.[1077] His\nhorror of the interruption of the daily offerings in the Temple, caused\nby the plague of locusts,[1078] is ascribed to a fear which pervaded\nthe primitive ages of all peoples.[1079] In Joel\u2019s attitude towards\nother nations, whom he condemns to judgment, Ewald saw \u201cthe old\nunsubdued warlike spirit of the times of Deborah and David.\u201d The\nprophet\u2019s absorption in the ravages of the locusts is held to reflect\nthe feeling of a purely agricultural community, such as Israel was\nbefore the eighth century. The absence of the name of Assyria from the\nbook is assigned to the same unwillingness to give the name as we see\nin Amos and the earlier prophecies of Isaiah, and it is thought by some\nthat, though not named, the Assyrians are symbolised by the locusts.\nThe absence of all mention of the Law is also held by some to prove an\nearly date: though other critics, who believe that the Levitical\nlegislation was extant in Israel from the earliest times, find proof of\nthis in Joel\u2019s insistence upon the daily offering. The absence of all\nmention of a king and the prominence given to the priests are explained\nby assigning the prophecy to the minority of King Joash of Judah, when\nJehoyada the priest was regent;[1080] the charge against Egypt and Edom\nof spilling innocent blood by Shishak\u2019s invasion of Judah,[1081] and by\nthe revolt of the Edomites under Jehoram;[1082] the charge against the\nPhilistines and Ph\u0153nicians by the Chronicler\u2019s account of Philistine\nraids[1083] in the reign of Jehoram of Judah, and by the oracles of\nAmos against both nations;[1084] and the mention of the Vale of\nJehoshaphat by that king\u2019s defeat of Moab, Ammon and Edom in the Vale\nof Berakhah.[1085] These allusions being recognised, it was deduced\nfrom them that the parallels between Joel and Amos were due to Amos\nhaving quoted from Joel.[1086]\n\nThese reasons are not all equally cogent,[1087] and even the strongest\nof them do not prove more than the possibility of an early date for\nJoel.[1088] Nor do they meet every historical difficulty. The minority\nof Joash, upon which they converge, fell at a time when Aram was not\nonly prominent to the thoughts of Israel, but had already been felt to\nbe an enemy as powerful as the Philistines or Edomites. But the Book of\nJoel does not mention Aram. It mentions the Greeks,[1089] and, although\nwe have no right to say that such a notice was impossible in Israel\nin the ninth century, it was not only improbable, but no other Hebrew\ndocument from before the Exile speaks of Greece, and in particular\nAmos does not when describing the Ph\u0153nicians as slave-traders.[1090]\nThe argument that the Book of Joel must be early because it was placed\namong the first six of the Twelve Prophets by the arrangers of the\nProphetic Canon, who could not have forgotten Joel\u2019s date had he lived\nafter 450, loses all force from the fact that in the same group of\npre-exilic prophets we find the exilic Obadiah and the post-exilic\nJonah, both of them in precedence to Micah.\n\nThe argument for the early date of Joel is, therefore, not conclusive.\nBut there are besides serious objections to it, which make for the\nother solution of the alternative we started from, and lead us to place\nJoel after the establishment of the Law by Ezra and Nehemiah in 444 B.C.\n\nA post-exilic date was first proposed by Vatke,[1091] and then\ndefended by Hilgenfeld,[1092] and by Duhm in 1875.[1093] From this\ntime the theory made rapid way, winning over many who had previously\nheld the early date of Joel, like Oort,[1094] Kuenen,[1095] A. B.\nDavidson,[1096] Driver and Cheyne,[1097] perhaps also Wellhausen,[1098]\nand finding acceptance and new proofs from a gradually increasing\nmajority of younger critics, Merx,[1099] Robertson Smith,[1100]\nStade,[1101] Matthes and Scholz,[1102] Holzinger,[1103] Farrar,[1104]\nKautzsch,[1105] Cornill,[1106] Wildeboer,[1107] G. B. Gray[1108] and\nNowack.[1109] The reasons which have led to this formidable change of\nopinion in favour of the late date of the Book of Joel are as follows.\n\nIn the first place, the Exile of Judah appears in it as already past.\nThis is proved, not by the ambiguous phrase, _when I shall bring again\nthe captivity of Judah and Jerusalem_,[1110] but by the plain statement\nthat _the heathen have scattered Israel among the nations and divided\ntheir land_.[1111] The plunder of the Temple seems also to be\nimplied.[1112] Moreover, no great world-power is pictured as either\nthreatening or actually persecuting God\u2019s people; but Israel\u2019s active\nenemies and enslavers are represented as her own neighbours, Edomites,\nPhilistines and Ph\u0153nicians, and the last are represented as selling\nJewish captives to the Greeks. All this suits, if it does not\nabsolutely prove, the Persian age, before the reign of Artaxerxes\nOchus, who was the first Persian king to treat the Jews with\ncruelty.[1113] The Greeks, Javan, do not appear in any Hebrew writer\nbefore the Exile;[1114] the form in which their name is given by Joel,\nB\u2019ne ha-Jevanim, has admittedly a late sound about it,[1115] and we\nknow from other sources that it was in the fifth and fourth centuries\nthat Syrian slaves were in demand in Greece.[1116] Similarly with the\ninternal condition of the Jews as reflected in Joel. No king is\nmentioned; but the priests are prominent, and the elders are introduced\nat least once.[1117] It is an agricultural calamity, and that alone,\nunmixed with any political alarm, which is the omen of the coming Day\nof the Lord. All this suits the state of Jerusalem under the Persians.\nTake again the religious temper and emphasis of the book. The latter is\nlaid, as we have seen, very remarkably upon the horror of the\ninterruption by the plague of locusts of the daily meal and drink\nofferings, and in the later history of Israel the proofs are many of\nthe exceeding importance with which the regularity of this was\nregarded.[1118] This, says Professor A. B. Davidson, \u201cis very unlike\nthe way in which all other prophets down to Jeremiah speak of the\nsacrificial service.\u201d The priests, too, are called to take the\ninitiative; and the summons to a solemn and formal fast, without any\nnotice of the particular sins of the people or exhortations to distinct\nvirtues, contrasts with the attitude to fasts of the earlier prophets,\nand with their insistence upon a change of life as the only acceptable\nform of penitence.[1119] And another contrast with the earliest\nprophets is seen in the general apocalyptic atmosphere and colouring of\nthe Book of Joel, as well as in some of the particular figures in which\nthis is expressed, and which are derived from later prophets like\nZephaniah and Ezekiel.[1120]\n\nThese evidences for a late date are supported, on the whole, by the\nlanguage of the book. Of this Merx furnishes many details, and by a\ncareful examination, which makes due allowance for the poetic form of\nthe book and for possible glosses, Holzinger has shown that there are\nsymptoms in vocabulary, grammar and syntax which at least are more\nreconcilable with a late than with an early date.[1121] There are a\nnumber of Aramaic words, of Hebrew words used in the sense in which\nthey are used by Aramaic, but by no other Hebrew, writers, and several\nterms and constructions which appear only in the later books of the Old\nTestament or very seldom in the early ones.[1122] It is true that these\ndo not stand in a large proportion to the rest of Joel\u2019s vocabulary and\ngrammar, which is classic and suitable to an early period of the\nliterature; but this may be accounted for by the large use which the\nprophet makes of the very words of earlier writers. Take this large use\ninto account, and the unmistakable Aramaisms of the book become even\nmore emphatic in their proof of a late date.\n\nThe literary parallels between Joel and other writers are unusually\nmany for so small a book. They number at least twenty in seventy-two\nverses. The other books of the Old Testament in which they occur are\nabout twelve. Where one writer has parallels with many, we do not\nnecessarily conclude that he is the borrower, unless we find that some\nof the phrases common to both are characteristic of the other writers,\nor that, in his text of them, there are differences from theirs which\nmay reasonably be reckoned to be of a later origin. But that both of\nthese conditions are found in the parallels between Joel and other\nprophets has been shown by Prof. Driver and Mr. G. B. Gray. \u201cSeveral of\nthe parallels\u2014either in their entirety or by virtue of certain words\nwhich they contain\u2014have their affinities solely or chiefly in the later\nwritings. But the significance [of this] is increased when the very\ndifference between a passage in Joel and its parallel in another book\nconsists in a word or phrase characteristic of the later centuries.\nThat a passage in a writer of the ninth century should differ from its\nparallel in a subsequent writer by the presence of a word elsewhere\nconfined to the later literature would be strange; a single instance\nwould not, indeed, be inexplicable in view of the scantiness of\nextant writings; but every additional instance\u2014though itself not\nvery convincing\u2014renders the strangeness greater.\u201d And again, \u201cthe\nvariations in some of the parallels as found in Joel have other common\npeculiarities. This also finds its natural explanation in the fact\nthat Joel quotes: for that the _same_ author even when quoting from\ndifferent sources should quote with variations of the same character\nis natural, but that _different_ authors quoting from a common source\nshould follow the same method of quotation is improbable.\u201d[1123] \u201cWhile\nin some of the parallels a comparison discloses indications that the\nphrase in Joel is probably the later, in other cases, even though the\nexpression may in itself be met with earlier, it becomes frequent only\nin a later age, and the use of it by Joel increases the presumption\nthat he stands by the side of the later writers.\u201d[1124]\n\nIn face of so many converging lines of evidence, we shall not wonder\nthat there should have come about so great a change in the opinion of\nthe majority of critics on the date of Joel, and that it should now be\nassigned by them to a post-exilic date. Some place it in the sixth\ncentury before Christ,[1125] some in the first half of the fifth before\n\u201cMalachi\u201d and Nehemiah,[1126] but the most after the full establishment\nof the Law by Ezra and Nehemiah in 444 B.C.[1127] It is difficult,\nperhaps impossible, to decide. Nothing certain can be deduced from the\nmention of the _city wall_ in chap. ii. 9, from which Robertson Smith\nand Cornill infer that Nehemiah\u2019s walls were already built. Nor can we\nbe sure that Joel quotes the phrase, _before the great and terrible day\nof Jehovah come_, from \u201cMalachi,\u201d[1128] although this is rendered\nprobable by the character of Joel\u2019s other parallels. But the absence of\nall reference to the prophets as a class, the promise of the rigorous\nexclusion of foreigners from Jerusalem,[1129] the condemnation to\njudgment of all the heathen, and the strong apocalyptic character of\nthe book, would incline us to place it after Ezra rather than before.\nHow far after, it is impossible to say, but the absence of feeling\nagainst Persia requires a date before the cruelties inflicted by\nArtaxerxes about 360.[1130]\n\nOne solution, which has lately been offered for the problems of date\npresented by the Book of Joel, deserves some notice. In his German\ntranslation of Driver\u2019s _Introduction to the Old Testament_,[1131]\nRothstein questions the integrity of the prophecy, and alleges reasons\nfor dividing it into two sections. Chaps. i. and ii. (Heb.; i.\u2014ii. 27\nEng.) he assigns to an early author, writing in the minority of King\nJoash, but chaps. iii. and iv. (Heb.; ii. 28\u2014iii. Eng.) to a date after\nthe Exile, while ii. 20, which, it will be remembered, Robertson Smith\ntakes as a gloss, he attributes to the editor who has joined the two\nsections together. His reasons are that chaps. i. and ii. are entirely\ntaken up with the physical plague of locusts, and no troubles from\nheathen are mentioned; while chaps. iii. and iv. say nothing of a\nphysical plague, but the evils they deplore for Israel are entirely\npolitical, the assaults of enemies. Now it is quite within the bounds\nof possibility that chaps. iii. and iv. are from another hand than\nchaps. i. and ii.: we have nothing to disprove that. But, on the other\nhand, there is nothing to prove it. On the contrary, the possibility of\nall four chapters being from the same hand is very obvious. Joel\nmentions no heathen in the first chapter, because he is engrossed with\nthe plague of locusts. But when this has passed, it is quite natural\nthat he should take up the standing problem of Israel\u2019s history\u2014their\nrelation to heathen peoples. There is no discrepancy between the two\ndifferent subjects, nor between the styles in which they are\nrespectively treated. Rothstein\u2019s arguments for an early date for\nchaps. i. and ii. have been already answered, and when we come to the\nexposition of them we shall find still stronger reasons for assigning\nthem to the end of the fifth century before Christ. The assault on the\nintegrity of the prophecy may therefore be said to have failed, though\nno one who remembers the composite character of the prophetical books\ncan deny that the question is still open.[1132]\n\n\n 2. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK: IS IT DESCRIPTION,\n ALLEGORY OR APOCALYPSE?\n\nAnother question to which we must address ourselves before we can pass\nto the exposition of Joel\u2019s prophecies is of the attitude and intention\nof the prophet. Does he describe or predict? Does he give history or\nallegory?\n\nJoel starts from a great plague of locusts, which he describes not only\nin the ravages they commit upon the land, but in their ominous\nforeshadowing of the Day of the Lord. They are the heralds of God\u2019s\nnear judgment upon the nation. Let the latter repent instantly with a\nday of fasting and prayer. Peradventure Jehovah will relent, and spare\nHis people. So far chap. i. 2\u2014ii. 17. Then comes a break. An uncertain\ninterval appears to elapse; and in chap. ii. 18 we are told that\nJehovah\u2019s zeal for Israel has been stirred, and He has had pity on His\nfolk. Promises follow, _first_, of deliverance from the plague and of\nrestoration of the harvests it has consumed, and _second_, of the\noutpouring of the Spirit on all classes of the community: chap. ii.\n17-32 (Eng.; ii. 17\u2014iii. Heb.). Chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) gives\nanother picture of the Day of Jehovah, this time described as a\njudgment upon the heathen enemies of Israel. They shall be brought\ntogether, condemned judicially by Him, and slain by His hosts, His\n\u201csupernatural\u201d hosts. Jerusalem shall be freed from the feet of\nstrangers, and the fertility of the land restored.\n\nThese are the contents of the book. Do they describe an actual plague\nof locusts, already experienced by the people? Or do they predict this\nas still to come? And again, are the locusts which they describe real\nlocusts, or a symbol and allegory of the human foes of Israel? To these\ntwo questions, which in a measure cross and involve each other, three\nkinds of answer have been given.\n\nA large and growing majority of critics of all schools[1133] hold that\nJoel starts, like other prophets, from the facts of experience. His\nlocusts, though described with poetic hyperbole\u2014for are they not the\nvanguard of the awful Day of God\u2019s judgment?\u2014are real locusts; their\nplague has just been felt by his contemporaries, whom he summons to\nrepent, and to whom, when they have repented, he brings promises of the\nrestoration of their ruined harvests, the outpouring of the Spirit, and\njudgment upon their foes. Prediction is therefore found only in the\nsecond half of the book (ii. 18 onwards): it rests upon a basis of\nnarrative and exhortation which fills the first half.\n\nBut a number of other critics have argued (and with great force)\nthat the prophet\u2019s language about the locusts is too aggravated and\ntoo ominous to be limited to the natural plague which these insects\nperiodically inflicted upon Palestine. Joel (they reason) would hardly\nhave connected so common an adversity with so singular and ultimate a\ncrisis as the Day of the Lord. Under the figure of locusts he must be\ndescribing some more fateful agency of God\u2019s wrath upon Israel. More\nthan one trait of his description appears to imply a human army. It can\nonly be one or other, or all, of those heathen powers whom at different\nperiods God raised up to chastise His delinquent people; and this\nopinion is held to be supported by the facts that chap. ii. 20 speaks\nof them as the Northern and chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) deals with the\nheathen. The locusts of chaps. i. and ii. are the same as the heathen\nof chap. iii. In chaps. i. and ii. they are described as threatening\nIsrael, but on condition of Israel repenting (chap. ii. 18 ff.) the\nDay of the Lord which they herald shall be their destruction and not\nIsrael\u2019s (chap. iii.).[1134]\n\nThe supporters of this allegorical interpretation of Joel are, however,\ndivided among themselves as to whether the heathen powers symbolised by\nthe locusts are described as having already afflicted Israel or are\npredicted as still to come. Hilgenfeld,[1135] for instance, says that\nthe prophet in chaps. i. and ii. speaks of their ravages as already\npast. To him their fourfold plague described in chap. i. 4 symbolises\nfour Persian assaults upon Palestine, after the last of which in 358\nthe prophecy must therefore have been written.[1136] Others read them\nas still to come. In our own country Pusey has been the strongest\nsupporter of this theory.[1137] To him the whole book, written before\nAmos, is prediction. \u201cIt extends from the prophet\u2019s own day to the end\nof time.\u201d Joel calls the scourge the Northern: he directs the priests\nto pray for its removal, that _the heathen may not rule over God\u2019s\nheritage_;[1138] he describes the agent as a responsible one;[1139] his\nimagery goes far beyond the effects of locusts, and threatens drought,\nfire and plague,[1140] the assault of cities and the terrifying of\npeoples.[1141] The scourge is to be destroyed in a way physically\ninapplicable to locusts;[1142] and the promises of its removal include\nthe remedy of ravages which mere locusts could not inflict: the\ncaptivity of Judah is to be turned, and the land recovered from\nforeigners who are to be banished from it.[1143] Pusey thus reckons as\nfuture the relenting of God, consequent upon the people\u2019s penitence:\nchap. ii. 18 ff. The past tenses in which it is related, he takes as\ninstances of the well-known prophetic perfect, according to which the\nprophets express their assurance of things to come by describing them\nas if they had already happened.\n\nThis is undoubtedly a strong case for the predictive and allegorical\ncharacter of the Book of Joel; but a little consideration will show\nus that the facts on which it is grounded are capable of a different\nexplanation than that which it assumes, and that Pusey has overlooked\na number of other facts which force us to a literal interpretation of\nthe locusts as a plague already past, even though we feel they are\ndescribed in the language of poetical hyperbole.\n\nFor, in the first place, Pusey\u2019s theory implies that the prophecy is\naddressed to a future generation, who shall be alive when the predicted\ninvasions of heathen come upon the land. Whereas Joel obviously\naddresses his own contemporaries. The prophet and his hearers are\none. _Before our eyes_, he says, _the food has been cut off_.[1144]\nAs obviously, he speaks of the plague of locusts as of something that\nhas just happened. His hearers can compare its effects with past\ndisasters, which it has far exceeded;[1145] and it is their duty to\nhand down the story of it to future generations.[1146] Again, his\ndescription is that of a physical, not of a political, plague. Fields\nand gardens, vines and figs, are devastated by being stripped and\ngnawed. Drought accompanies the locusts, the seed shrivels beneath the\nclods, the trees languish, the cattle pant for want of water.[1147]\nThese are not the trail which an invading army leave behind them. In\nsupport of his theory that human hosts are meant, Pusey points to\nthe verses which bid the people pray _that the heathen rule not over\nthem_, and which describe the invaders as attacking cities.[1148] But\nthe former phrase may be rendered with equal propriety, _that the\nheathen make not satirical songs about them_;[1149] and as to the\nlatter, not only do locusts invade towns exactly as Joel describes,\nbut his words that the invader steals into houses like _a thief_ are\nfar more applicable to the insidious entrance of locusts than to the\nbold and noisy assault of a storming party. Moreover Pusey and the\nother allegorical interpreters of the book overlook the fact that Joel\nnever so much as hints at the invariable effects of a human invasion,\nmassacre and plunder. He describes no slaying and no looting; but when\nhe comes to the promise that Jehovah will restore the losses which have\nbeen sustained by His people, he defines them as the years which His\narmy has _eaten_.[1150] But all this proof is clenched by the fact that\nJoel compares the locusts to actual soldiers.[1151] They are _like_\nhorsemen, the sound of them is _like_ chariots, they run _like_ horses,\nand _like_ men of war they leap upon the wall. Joel could never have\ncompared a real army to itself!\n\nThe allegorical interpretation is therefore untenable. But some\ncritics, while admitting this, are yet not disposed to take the first\npart of the book for narrative. They admit that the prophet means\na plague of locusts, but they deny that he is speaking of a plague\nalready past, and hold that his locusts are still to come, that they\nare as much a part of the future as the pouring out of the\nSpirit[1152] and the judgment of the heathen in the Valley of\nJehoshaphat.[1153] All alike, they are signs or accompaniments of\nthe Day of Jehovah, and that Day has still to break. The prophet\u2019s\nscenery is apocalyptic; the locusts are \u201ceschatological locusts,\u201d not\nhistorical ones. This interpretation of Joel has been elaborated by Dr.\nAdalbert Merx, and the following is a summary of his opinions.[1154]\n\n After examining the book along all the lines of exposition which have\n been proposed, Merx finds himself unable to trace any plan or even\n sign of a plan; and his only escape from perplexity is the belief that\n no plan can ever have been meant by the author. Joel weaves in one\n past, present and future, paints situations only to blot them out and\n put others in their place, starts many processes but develops none.\n His book shows no insight into God\u2019s plan with Israel, but is purely\n external; the bearing and the end of it is the material prosperity of\n the little land of Judah. From this Merx concludes that the book is\n not an original work, but a mere summary of passages from previous\n prophets, that with a few reflections of the life of the Jews after\n the Return lead us to assign it to that period of literary culture\n which Nehemiah inaugurated by the collection of national writings and\n which was favoured by the cessation of all political disturbance. Joel\n gathered up the pictures of the Messianic age in the older prophets,\n and welded them together in one long prayer by the fervid belief that\n that age was near. But while the older prophets spoke upon the ground\n of actual fact and rose from this to a majestic picture of the last\n punishment, the still life of Joel\u2019s time had nothing such to offer\n him and he had to seek another basis for his prophetic flight. It is\n probable that he sought this in the relation of Type and Antitype. The\n Antitype he found in the liberation from Egypt, the darkness and the\n locusts of which he transferred to his canvas from Exodus x. 4-6. The\n locusts, therefore, are neither real nor symbolic, but ideal. This is\n the method of the Midrash and Haggada in Jewish literature, which\n constantly placed over against each other the deliverance from Egypt\n and the last judgment. It is a method that is already found in such\n portions of the Old Testament as Ezekiel xxxvii. and Psalm lxxviii.\n Joel\u2019s locusts are borrowed from the Egyptian plagues, but are\n presented as the signs of the Last Day. They will bring it near to\n Israel by famine, drought and the interruption of worship described in\n chap. i. Chap. ii., which Merx keeps distinct from chap. i., is based\n on a study of Ezekiel, from whom Joel has borrowed, among other\n things, the expressions _the garden of Eden_ and _the Northerner_. The\n two verses generally held to be historic, 18 and 19, Merx takes to be\n the continuation of the prayer of the priests, pointing the verbs so\n as to turn them from perfects into futures.[1155] The rest of the\n book, Merx strives to show, is pieced together from many prophets,\n chiefly Isaiah and Ezekiel, but without the tender spiritual feeling\n of the one, or the colossal magnificence of the other. Special nations\n are mentioned, but in this portion of the work we have to do not with\n events already past, but with general views, and these not original,\n but conditioned by the expressions of earlier writers. There is no\n history in the book: it is all ideal, mystical, apocalyptic. That is\n to say, according to Merx, there is no real prophet or prophetic fire,\n only an old man warming his feeble hands over a few embers that he has\n scraped together from the ashes of ancient fires, now nearly wholly\n dead.\n\n Merx has traced Joel\u2019s relations to other prophets, and reflection of\n a late date in Israel\u2019s history, with care and ingenuity; but his\n treatment of the text and exegesis of the prophet\u2019s meaning are alike\n forced and fanciful. In face of the support which the Massoretic\n reading of the hinge of the book, chap. ii. 18 ff., receives from the\n ancient versions, and of its inherent probability and harmony with the\n context, Merx\u2019s textual emendation is unnecessary, besides being in\n itself unnatural.[1156] While the very same objections which we have\n already found valid against the allegorical interpretation equally\n dispose of this mystical one. Merx outrages the evident features of\n the book almost as much as Hengstenberg and Pusey have done. He has\n lifted out of time altogether that which plainly purports to be\n historical. His literary criticism is as unsound as his textual. It is\n only by ignoring the beautiful poetry of chap. i. that he transplants\n it to the future. Joel\u2019s figures are too vivid, too actual, to be\n predictive or mystical. And the whole interpretation wrecks itself in\n the same verse as the allegorical, the verse, viz., in which Joel\n plainly speaks of himself as having suffered with his hearers the\n plague he describes.[1157]\n\nWe may, therefore, with confidence conclude that the allegorical and\nmystical interpretations of Joel are impossible; and that the only\nreasonable view of our prophet is that which regards him as calling,\nin chap. i. 2\u2014ii. 17, upon his contemporaries to repent in face of\na plague of locusts, so unusually severe that he has felt it to be\nominous of even the Day of the Lord; and in the rest of his book,\nas promising material, political and spiritual triumphs to Israel\nin consequence of their repentance, either already consummated, or\nanticipated by the prophet as certain.\n\nIt is true that the account of the locusts appears to bear features\nwhich conflict with the literal interpretation. Some of these, however,\nvanish upon a fuller knowledge of the awful degree which such a plague\nhas been testified to reach by competent observers within our own\nera.[1158] Those that remain may be attributed partly to the poetic\nhyperbole of Joel\u2019s style, and partly to the fact that he sees in\nthe plague far more than itself. The locusts are signs of the Day of\nJehovah. Joel treats them as we found Zephaniah treating the Scythian\nhordes of his day. They are as real as the latter, but on them as on\nthe latter the lurid glare of Apocalypse has fallen, magnifying them\nand investing them with that air of ominousness which is the sole\njustification of the allegorical and mystic interpretation of their\nappearance.\n\nTo the same sense of their office as heralds of the last day, we owe\nthe description of the locusts as _the Northerner_.[1159] The North\nis not the quarter from which locusts usually reach Palestine, nor\nis there any reason to suppose that by naming the North Joel meant\nonly to emphasise the unusual character of these swarms. Rather he\ntakes a name employed in Israel since Jeremiah\u2019s time to express the\ninstruments of Jehovah\u2019s wrath in the day of His judgment of Israel.\nThe name is typical of Doom, and therefore Joel applies it to his\nfateful locusts.\n\n\n 3. STATE OF THE TEXT AND THE STYLE OF THE BOOK.\n\nJoel\u2019s style is fluent and clear, both when he is describing the\nlocusts, in which part of his book he is most original, and when he\nis predicting, in apocalyptic language largely borrowed from earlier\nprophets, the Day of Jehovah. To the ease of understanding him we may\nattribute the sound state of the text and its freedom from glosses. In\nthis, like most of the books of the post-exilic prophets, especially\nthe Books of Haggai, \u201cMalachi\u201d and Jonah, Joel\u2019s book contrasts very\nfavourably with those of the older prophets; and that also, to some\ndegree, is proof of the lateness of his date. The Greek translators\nhave, on the whole, understood Joel easily and with little error.\nIn their version there are the usual differences of grammatical\nconstruction, especially in the pronominal suffixes and verbs, and of\npunctuation; but very few bits of expansion and no real additions.\nThese are all noted in the translation below.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1068] See above, Chap. XIII.\n\n[1069] See Vol. I. The Assyria of \u201cZech.\u201d x. 11 is Syria. See below.\n\n[1070] The two exceptions, Nahum and Habakkuk, are not relevant to this\nquestion. Their dates are fixed by their references to Assyria and\nBabylon.\n\n[1071] See Rob. Smith, art. \u201cJoel,\u201d _Encyc. Brit._\n\n[1072] So obvious is this alternative that all critics may be said to\ngrant it, except K\u00f6nig (_Einl._), on whose reasons for placing Joel\nin the end of the seventh century see below, p. 386, n. 1130. Kessner\n(_Das Zeitalter der Proph. Joel_, 1888) deems the date unprovable.\n\n[1073] See _The Religion of Israel_, Vol. I., pp. 86 f.\n\n[1074] _The O.T. and its Contents_, p. 105.\n\n[1075] _Lex Mosaica_, pp. 422, 450.\n\n[1076] See especially Ewald on Joel in his _Prophets of the O.T._, and\nKirkpatrick\u2019s very fair argument in _Doctrine of the Prophets_, pp. 57\nff.\n\n[1077] On Joel\u2019s picture of the Day of Jehovah Ewald says: \u201cWe have it\nhere in its first simple and clear form, nor has it become a subject of\nridicule as in Amos.\u201d\n\n[1078] i. 9, 13, 16, ii. 14.\n\n[1079] So Ewald.\n\n[1080] 2 Kings xi. 4-21.\n\n[1081] 1 Kings xiv. 25 f.: cf. Joel iii. 17_b_, 19.\n\n[1082] 2 Kings viii. 20-22: cf. Joel iii. 19.\n\n[1083] 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17, xxii. 1: cf. Joel iii. 4-6.\n\n[1084] Amos i.: cf. Joel iii. 4-6.\n\n[1085] 2 Chron. xx., especially 26: cf. Joel iii. 2.\n\n[1086] Joel iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 16; Amos i. 2. For a list of the\nvarious periods to which Joel has been assigned by supporters of this\nearly date see Kuenen, \u00a7 68.\n\n[1087] The reference of Egypt in iii. 19 to Shishak\u2019s invasion appears\nparticularly weak.\n\n[1088] Cf. Robertson, _O. T. and its Contents_, 105, and Kirkpatrick\u2019s\ncautious, though convinced, statement of the reasons for an early date.\n\n[1089] iii. 6 (Heb. iv. 6).\n\n[1090] Amos i. 9.\n\n[1091] _Bibl. Theol._, I., p. 462; _Einl._, pp. 675 ff.\n\n[1092] _Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol._, X., Heft 4.\n\n[1093] _Theol. der Proph._, pp. 275 ff.\n\n[1094] _Theol. Tijd._, 1876, pp. 362 ff. (not seen).\n\n[1095] _Onderz._, \u00a7 68.\n\n[1096] _Expositor_, 1888, Jan.\u2014June, pp. 198 ff.\n\n[1097] See Cheyne, _Origin of Psalter_, xx.; Driver, _Introd._, in the\nsixth edition of which, 1897, he supports the late date of Joel more\nstrongly than in the first edition, 1892.\n\n[1098] Wellhausen allowed the theory of the early date of Joel to stand\nin his edition of Bleek\u2019s _Einleitung_, but adopts the late date in his\nown _Kleine Propheten_.\n\n[1099] _Die Prophetie des Joels u. ihre Ausleger_, 1879.\n\n[1100] _Encyc. Brit._, art. \u201cJoel,\u201d 1881.\n\n[1101] _Gesch._, II. 207.\n\n[1102] _Theol. Tijdschr._, 1885, p. 151; _Comm._, 1885 (neither seen).\n\n[1103] \u201cSprachcharakter u. Abfassungszeit des B. Joels\u201d in _Z.A.T.W._,\n1889, pp. 89 ff.\n\n[1104] _Minor Prophets._\n\n[1105] _Bibel._\n\n[1106] _Einleit._\n\n[1107] _Litteratur des A. T._\n\n[1108] _Expositor_, September 1893.\n\n[1109] _Comm._, 1897.\n\n[1110] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 1. For this may only mean _turn again the\nfortunes of Judah and Jerusalem_.\n\n[1111] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 2. The supporters of a pre-exilic date\neither passed this over or understood it of incursions by the heathen\ninto Israel\u2019s territories in the ninth century. It is, however, too\nuniversal to suit these.\n\n[1112] iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 5.\n\n[1113] Kautzsch dates after Artaxerxes Ochus, and _c._ 350.\n\n[1114] Ezekiel (xxvii. 13, 19) is the first to give the name Javan,\n_i.e._ \u0399\u03b1\u03dc\u03c9\u03bd, or Ionian (earlier writers name Egypt, Edom, Arabia\nand Ph\u0153nicia as the great slave-markets: Amos i.; Isa. xi. 11; Deut.\nxxviii. 68); and Greeks are also mentioned in Isa. lxvi. 19 (a\npost-exilic passage); Zech. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2; 1\nChron. i. 5, 7, and Gen. x. 2. See below, Chap. XXXI.\n\n[1115]\u200e \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd instead of \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d5\u05df, just as the Chronicler gives\n\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e7\u05e8\u05d7\u05d9\u05dd for \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05e7\u05e8\u05d7: see Wildeboer, p. 348, and Matthes, quoted by\nHolzinger, p. 94.\n\n[1116] Movers, _Ph\u00f6n. Alterthum._, II. 1, pp. 70 _sqq._: which\nreference I owe to R. Smith\u2019s art. in the _Encyc. Brit._\n\n[1117] With these might be taken the use of \u05e7\u05d4\u05dc (ii. 16) in its sense of\na gathering for public worship. The word itself was old in Hebrew, but\nas time went on it came more and more to mean the convocation of the\nnation for worship or deliberation. Holzinger, pp. 105 f.\n\n[1118] Cf. Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11. Also Acts xxvi.\n7: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03c9\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f21\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd. Also the\npassages in Jos., XIV. _Ant._ iv. 3, xvi. 2, in which Josephus mentions\nthe horror caused by the interruption of the daily sacrifice by famine\nin the last siege of Jerusalem, and adds that it had happened in no\nprevious siege of the city.\n\n[1119] Cf. Jer. xiv. 12; Isa. lviii. 6; Zech. vii. 5, vi. 11, 19, with\nNeh. i. 4, ix. 1; Ezra viii. 21; Jonah iii. 5, 7; Esther iv. 3, 16, ix.\n31; Dan. ix. 3.\n\n[1120] The gathering of the Gentiles to judgment, Zeph. iii. 8 (see\nabove, p. 69) and Ezek. xxxviii. 22; the stream issuing from the Temple\nto fill the Wady ha-Shittim, Ezek. xlvii. 1 ff., cf. Zech. xiv. 8; the\noutpouring of the Spirit, Ezek. xxxix. 29.\n\n[1121] _Z.A.T.W._, 1889, pp. 89-136. Holzinger\u2019s own conclusion is\nstated more emphatically than above.\n\n[1122] For an exhaustive list the reader must be referred to\nHolzinger\u2019s article (cf. Driver, _Introd._, sixth edition; _Joel and\nAmos_, p. 24; G. B. Gray, _Expositor_, September 1893, p. 212). But the\nfollowing (a few of which are not given by Holzinger) are sufficient to\nprove the conclusion come to above: i. 2, iv. 4, \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b4\u05dd ... \u05d4\u05b2\u2014 this\nis the form of the disjunctive interrogative in later O. T. writings,\nreplacing the earlier \u05d0\u05b4\u05dd ... \u05d4\u05b2; i. 8, \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 only here in O. T., but\nfrequent in Aram.; 13, \u05e0\u05de\u05e0\u05e2 in Ni. only from Jeremiah onwards, Qal only\nin two passages before Jeremiah and in a number after him; 18, \u05e0\u05d0\u05e0\u05d7\u05d4,\nif the correct reading, occurs only in the latest O. T. writings, the\nQal only in these and Aram.; ii. 2, iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 20, \u05d3\u05d5\u05e8 \u05d5\u05d3\u05d5\u05e8\nfirst in Deut. xxxii. 7, and then exilic and post-exilic frequently; 8,\n\u05e9\u05dc\u05d7, a late word, only in Job xxxiii. 18, xxxvi. 12, 2 Chron. xxiii.\n10, xxxii. 5, Neh. iii. 15, iv. 11, 17; 20, \u05e1\u05d5\u05b9\u05e3, _end_, only in 2\nChron. xx. 16 and Eccles., Aram. of Daniel, and post Bibl. Aram. and\nHeb.; iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 4, \u05e0\u05de\u05dc \u05e2\u05dc, cf. 2 Chron. xx. 11; 10, \u05e8\u05de\u05d7,\nsee below on this verse; 11, \u05d4\u05e0\u05d7\u05ea, Aram.; 13, \u05d1\u05e9\u05c1\u05dc, in Hebrew to cook\n(cf. Ezek. xxiv. 5), and in other forms always with that meaning down\nto the Priestly Writing and \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv., is used here in the sense\nof _ripen_, which is frequent in Aram., but does not occur elsewhere\nin O. T. Besides, Joel uses for the first personal pronoun \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9\u2014ii. 27\n(_bis_), iv. 10, 17\u2014which is by far the most usual form with later\nwriters, and not \u05d0\u05e0\u05db\u05d9, preferred by pre-exilic writers. (See below on\nthe language of Jonah.)\n\n[1123] G. B. Gray, _Expositor_, September 1893, pp. 213 f. For\nthe above conclusions ample proof is given in Mr. Gray\u2019s detailed\nexamination of the parallels: pp. 214 ff.\n\n[1124] Driver, _Joel and Amos_, p. 27.\n\n[1125] Scholz and Rosenzweig (not seen).\n\n[1126] Hilgenfeld, Duhm, Oort. Driver puts it \u201cmost safely shortly\nafter Haggai and Zechariah i.\u2014viii., _c._ 500 B.C.\u201d\n\n[1127] Vernes, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, Matthes, Cornill, Nowack, etc.\n\n[1128] Joel iii. 4 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 31); \u201cMal.\u201d iv. 5.\n\n[1129] iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) 17.\n\n[1130] Perhaps this is the most convenient place to refer to K\u00f6nig\u2019s\nproposal to place Joel in the last years of Josiah. Some of his\narguments (_e.g._ that Joel is placed among the first of the Twelve)\nwe have already answered. He thinks that i. 17-20 suit the great\ndrought in Josiah\u2019s reign (Jer. xiv. 2-6), that the name given to the\nlocusts, \u05d4\u05e6\u05e4\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9, ii. 20, is due to Jeremiah\u2019s enemy _from the north_,\nand that the phrases _return with all your heart_, ii. 12, and _return\nto Jehovah your God_, 13, imply a period of apostasy. None of these\nconclusions is necessary. The absence of reference to the _high places_\nfinds an analogy in Isa. i. 13; the \u05de\u05e0\u05d7\u05d4 is mentioned in Isa. i. 13:\nif Amos viii. 5 testifies to observance of the Sabbath, and Nahum ii.\n1 to other festivals, who can say a pre-exilic prophet would not be\ninterested in the meal and drink offerings? But surely no pre-exilic\nprophet would have so emphasised these as Joel has done. Nor is K\u00f6nig\u2019s\nexplanation of iv. 2 as of the Assyrian and Egyptian invasion of Judah\nso probable as that which refers the verse to the Babylonian exile.\nNor are K\u00f6nig\u2019s objections to a date after \u201cMalachi\u201d convincing.\nThey are that a prophet near \u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d time must have specified as\n\u201cMalachi\u201d did the reasons for the repentance to which he summoned the\npeople, while Joel gives none, but is quite general (ii. 13_a_). But\nthe change of attitude may be accounted for by the covenant and Law of\n444. \u201cMalachi\u201d i. 11 speaks of the Gentiles worshipping Jehovah, but\nnot even in Jonah iii. 5 is any relation of the Gentiles to Jehovah\npredicated. Again, the greater exclusiveness of Ezra and his Law may be\nthe cause. Joel, it is true, as K\u00f6nig says, does not mention the Law,\nwhile \u201cMalachi\u201d does (ii. 8, etc.); but this was not necessary if the\npeople had accepted it in 444. Professor Ryle (_Canon of O.T._, 106 n.)\nleaves the question of Joel\u2019s date open.\n\n[1131] Pages 333 f. n.\n\n[1132] Vernes, _Histoire des Id\u00e9es Messianiques depuis Alexandre_,\npp. 13 ff., had already asserted that chaps. i. and ii. must be by\na different author from chaps. iii. and iv., because the former has\nto do wholly with the writer\u2019s present, with which the latter has\nno connection whatever, but it is entirely eschatological. But in\nhis _M\u00e9langes de Crit. Relig._, pp. 218 ff., Vernes allows that his\narguments are not conclusive, and that all four chapters may have come\nfrom the same hand.\n\n[1133] _I.e._ Hitzig, Vatke, Ewald, Robertson Smith, Kuenen,\nKirkpatrick, Driver, Davidson, Nowack, etc.\n\n[1134] This allegorical interpretation was a favourite one with the\nearly Christian Fathers: cf. Jerome.\n\n[1135] _Zeitschr. f\u00fcr wissensch. Theologie_, 1860, pp. 412 ff.\n\n[1136] Cambyses 525, Xerxes 484, Artaxerxes Ochus 460 and 458.\n\n[1137] In Germany, among other representatives of this opinion,\nare Bertholdt (_Einl._) and Hengstenberg (_Christol._, III. 352\nff.), the latter of whom saw in the four kinds of locusts the\nAssyrian-Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman tyrants of\nIsrael.\n\n[1138] ii. 17.\n\n[1139] ii. 20.\n\n[1140] i. 19, 20.\n\n[1141] Plur. ii. 6.\n\n[1142] ii. 20.\n\n[1143] iii. (Heb. iv.) 1 f., 17.\n\n[1144] i. 16.\n\n[1145] i. 2 f.\n\n[1146] i. 3.\n\n[1147] i. 17 ff.\n\n[1148] ii. 17, ii. 9 ff.\n\n[1149]\u200e \u05dc\u05de\u05e9\u05dc \u05d1\u05dd\n\n[1150] A. B. Davidson, _Expos._, 1888, pp. 200 f.\n\n[1151] ii. 4 ff.\n\n[1152] Eng. ii. 28 ff., Heb. iii.\n\n[1153] Eng. iii., Heb. iv.\n\n[1154] _Die Prophetie des Joel u. ihre Ausleger_, 1879. The following\nsummary and criticism of Merx\u2019s views I take from an (unpublished)\nreview of his work which I wrote in 1881.\n\n[1155] For \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05e7\u05b7\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d0 etc. he reads \u05d5\u05b4\u05d9\u05e7\u05b7\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d0 etc.\n\n[1156] \u201cThe proposal of Merx, to change the pointing so as to transform\nthe perfects into futures, ... is an exegetical monstrosity.\u201d\u2014Robertson\nSmith, art. \u201cJoel,\u201d _Encyc. Brit._\n\n[1157] i. 16.\n\n[1158] Even the comparison of the ravages of the locusts to burning\nby fire. But probably also Joel means that they were accompanied by\ndrought and forest fires. See below.\n\n[1159] ii. 20.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVIII\n\n _THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD_\n\n JOEL i.\u2014ii. 17\n\n\nJoel, as we have seen, found the motive of his prophecy in a recent\nplague of locusts, the appearance of which and the havoc they worked\nare described by him in full detail. Writing not only as a poet but\nas a seer, who reads in the locusts signs of the great Day of the\nLord, Joel has necessarily put into his picture several features which\ncarry the imagination beyond the limits of experience. And yet, if\nwe ourselves had lived through such a plague, we should be able to\nrecognise how little license the poet has taken, and that the seer, so\nfar from unduly mixing with his facts the colours of Apocalypse, must\nhave experienced in the terrible plague itself enough to provoke all\nthe religious and monitory use which he makes of it.\n\nThe present writer has seen but one swarm of locusts, in which, though\nit was small and soon swept away by the wind, he felt not only many of\nthe features that Joel describes, but even some degree of that singular\nhelplessness before a calamity of portent far beyond itself, something\nof that supernatural edge and accent, which, by the confession of so\nmany observers, characterise the locust-plague and the earthquake above\nall other physical disasters. One summer afternoon, upon the plain of\nHauran, a long bank of mist grew rapidly from the western horizon. The\nday was dull, and as the mist rose athwart the sunbeams, struggling\nthrough clouds, it gleamed cold and white, like the front of a distant\nsnow-storm. When it came near, it seemed to be more than a mile broad,\nand was dense enough to turn the atmosphere raw and dirty, with a chill\nas of a summer sea-fog, only that this was not due to any fall in the\ntemperature. Nor was there the silence of a mist. We were enveloped\nby a noise, less like the whirring of wings than the rattle of hail\nor the crackling of bush on fire. Myriads upon myriads of locusts\nwere about us, covering the ground, and shutting out the view in all\ndirections. Though they drifted before the wind, there was no confusion\nin their ranks. They sailed in unbroken lines, sometimes straight,\nsometimes wavy; and when they passed pushing through our caravan, they\nleft almost no stragglers, except from the last battalion, and only the\nfew dead which we had caught in our hands. After several minutes they\nwere again but a lustre on the air, and so melted away into some heavy\nclouds in the east.\n\nModern travellers furnish us with terrible impressions of the\ninnumerable multitudes of a locust-plague, the succession of their\nswarms through days and weeks, and the utter desolation they leave\nbehind them. Mr. Doughty writes:[1160] \u201cThere hopped before our feet a\nminute brood of second locusts, of a leaden colour, with budding wings\nlike the spring leaves, and born of those gay swarms which a few weeks\nbefore had passed over and despoiled the desert. After forty days these\nalso would fly as a pestilence, yet more hungry than the former, and\nfill the atmosphere.\u201d And later: \u201cThe clouds of the second locust brood\nwhich the Arabs call \u2018Am\u2019dan, _pillars_, flew over us for some days,\ninvaded the booths and for blind hunger even bit our shins.\u201d[1161] It\nwas \u201ca storm of rustling wings.\u201d[1162] \u201cThis year was remembered for\nthe locust swarms and great summer heat.\u201d[1163] A traveller in South\nAfrica[1164] says: \u201cFor the space of ten miles on each side of the\nSea-Cow river and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen\nor eighteen hundred square miles, the whole surface might literally be\nsaid to be covered with them.\u201d In his recently published book on South\nAfrica, Mr. Bryce writes:\u2014[1165]\n\n\u201cIt is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget the destruction it\nbrings with it. The whole air, to twelve or even eighteen feet above\nthe ground, is filled with the insects, reddish brown in body, with\nbright, gauzy wings. When the sun\u2019s rays catch them it is like the sea\nsparkling with light. When you see them against a cloud they are like\nthe dense flakes of a driving snow-storm. You feel as if you had never\nbefore realised immensity in number. Vast crowds of men gathered at a\nfestival, countless tree-tops rising along the slope of a forest ridge,\nthe chimneys of London houses from the top of St. Paul\u2019s\u2014all are as\nnothing to the myriads of insects that blot out the sun above and cover\nthe ground beneath and fill the air whichever way one looks. The breeze\ncarries them swiftly past, but they come on in fresh clouds, a host of\nwhich there is no end, each of them a harmless creature which you can\ncatch and crush in your hand, but appalling in their power of\ncollective devastation.\u201d\n\nAnd take three testimonies from Syria: \u201cThe quantity of these insects\nis a thing incredible to any one who has not seen it himself; the\nground is covered by them for several leagues.\u201d[1166] \u201cThe whole face\nof the mountain[1167] was black with them. On they came like a living\ndeluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and beat and burnt to death\nheaps upon heaps, but the effort was utterly useless. They rolled up\nthe mountain-side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches and hedges,\nthose behind covering up and passing over the masses already killed.\nFor some days they continued to pass. The noise made by them in\nmarching and foraging was like that of a heavy shower falling upon a\ndistant forest.\u201d[1168] \u201cThe roads were covered with them, all marching\nand in regular lines, like armies of soldiers, with their leaders in\nfront; and all the opposition of man to resist their progress was in\nvain.\u201d Having consumed the plantations in the country, they entered the\ntowns and villages. \u201cWhen they approached our garden all the farm\nservants were employed to keep them off, but to no avail; though our\nmen broke their ranks for a moment, no sooner had they passed the men,\nthan they closed again, and marched forward through hedges and ditches\nas before. Our garden finished, they continued their march toward the\ntown, devastating one garden after another. They have also penetrated\ninto most of our rooms: whatever one is doing one hears their noise\nfrom without, like the noise of armed hosts, or the running of many\nwaters. When in an erect position their appearance at a little distance\nis like that of a well-armed horseman.\u201d[1169]\n\nLocusts are notoriously adapted for a plague, \u201csince to strength\nincredible for so small a creature, they add saw-like teeth, admirably\ncalculated to eat up all the herbs in the land.\u201d[1170] They are the\nincarnation of hunger. No voracity is like theirs, the voracity of\nlittle creatures, whose million separate appetites nothing is too\nminute to escape. They devour first grass and leaves, fruit and\nfoliage, everything that is green and juicy. Then they attack the young\nbranches of trees, and then the hard bark of the trunks.[1171] \u201cAfter\neating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows,\nand even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness.\u201d[1172] \u201cThe\nbark of figs, pomegranates and oranges, bitter, hard and corrosive,\nescaped not their voracity.\u201d[1173] \u201cThey are particularly injurious to\nthe palm-trees; these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the\ntrees remaining like skeletons with bare branches.\u201d[1174] \u201cFor eighty\nor ninety miles they devoured every green herb and every blade of\ngrass.\u201d[1175] \u201cThe gardens outside Jaffa are now completely stripped,\neven the bark of the young trees having been devoured, and look like a\nbirch-tree forest in winter.\u201d[1176] \u201cThe bushes were eaten quite bare,\nthough the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by\nhundreds on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres.\u201d[1177]\n\u201cBamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and left standing\nlike saplings after a rapid bush fire, and grass has been devoured so\nthat the bare ground appeared as if burned.\u201d[1178] \u201cThe country did not\nseem to be burnt, but to be much covered with snow through the\nwhiteness of the trees and the dryness of the herbs.\u201d[1179] The fields\nfinished, they invade towns and houses, in search of stores. Victual of\nall kinds, hay, straw, and even linen and woollen clothes and leather\nbottles, they consume or tear in pieces.[1180] They flood through the\nopen, unglazed windows and lattices: nothing can keep them out.\n\nThese extracts prove to us what little need Joel had of hyperbole in\norder to read his locusts as signs of the Day of Jehovah; especially if\nwe keep in mind that locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often\naccompany an absolute drought along with its consequence of prairie and\nforest fires. Some have thought that, in introducing the effects of\nfire, Joel only means to paint the burnt look of a land after locusts\nhave ravaged it. But locusts do not drink up the streams, nor cause the\nseed to shrivel in the earth.[1181] By these the prophet must mean\ndrought, and by _the flame that has burned all the trees of the\nfield_,[1182] the forest fire, finding an easy prey in the trees which\nhave been reduced to firewood by the locusts\u2019 teeth.\n\nEven in the great passage in which he passes from history to\nApocalypse, from the gloom and terror of the locusts to the lurid dawn\nof Jehovah\u2019s Day, Joel keeps within the actual facts of experience:\u2014\n\n _Day of darkness and murk,\n Day of cloud and heavy mist,\n Like dawn scattered on the mountains,\n A people many and powerful._\n\nNo one who has seen a cloud of locusts can question the realism even\nof this picture: the heavy gloom of the immeasurable mass of them,\nshot by gleams of light where a few of the sun\u2019s imprisoned beams have\nbroken through or across the storm of lustrous wings. This is like\ndawn beaten down upon the hilltops, and crushed by rolling masses of\ncloud, in conspiracy to prolong the night. No: the only point at which\nJoel leaves absolute fact for the wilder combinations of Apocalypse is\nat the very close of his description, chap. ii. 10 and 11, and just\nbefore his call to repentance. Here we find, mixed with the locusts,\nearthquake and thunderstorm; and Joel has borrowed these from the\nclassic pictures of the Day of the Lord, using some of the very phrases\nof the latter:\u2014\n\n _Earth trembles before them,\n Heaven quakes,\n Sun and moon become black,\n The stars withdraw their shining,\n And Jehovah utters His voice before His army._\n\nJoel, then, describes, and does not unduly enhance, the terrors of\nan actual plague. At first his whole strength is so bent to make his\npeople feel these, that, though about to call to repentance, he does\nnot detail the national sins which require it. In his opening verses he\nsummons the drunkards,[1183] but that is merely to lend vividness to\nhis picture of facts, because men of such habits will be the first to\nfeel a plague of this kind. Nor does Joel yet ask his hearers what the\ncalamity portends. At first he only demands that they shall feel it, in\nits uniqueness and its own sheer force.\n\nHence the peculiar style of the passage. Letter for letter, this is\none of the heaviest passages in prophecy. The proportion in Hebrew of\nliquids to the other letters is not large; but here it is smaller than\never. The explosives and dentals are very numerous. There are several\nkeywords, with hard consonants and long vowels, used again and again:\nShuddadh, \u2018\u0101bhlah, \u2018umlal, h\u00f4bh\u00eesh. The longer lines into which Hebrew\nparallelism tends to run are replaced by a rapid series of short, heavy\nphrases, falling like blows. Critics have called it rhetoric. But it\nis rhetoric of a very high order and perfectly suited to the prophet\u2019s\npurpose. Look at chap. i. 10: Shuddadh sadheh, \u2018\u0101bhlah \u2018adhamah,\nshuddadh daghan, h\u00f4bh\u00eesh t\u00eer\u00f4sh, \u2018umlal yi\u1e63\u1e25ar.[1184] Joel loads his\nclauses with the most leaden letters he can find, and drops them in\nquick succession, repeating the same heavy word again and again, as if\nhe would stun the careless people into some sense of the bare, brutal\nweight of the calamity which has befallen them.\n\nNow Joel does this because he believes that, if his people feel the\nplague in its proper violence, they must be convinced that it comes\nfrom Jehovah. The keynote of this part of the prophecy is found in\nchap. i. 15: \u201cKesh\u00f4dh mishshaddhai,\u201d _like violence from the\nAll-violent doth it come_. \u201cIf you feel this as it is, you will feel\nJehovah Himself in it. By these very blows, He and His Day are near. We\nhad been forgetting how near.\u201d Joel mentions no crime, nor enforces any\nvirtue: how could he have done so in so strong a sense that \u201cthe Judge\nwas at the door\u201d? To make men feel that they had forgotten they were in\nreach of that Almighty Hand, which could strike so suddenly and so\nhard\u2014Joel had time only to make men feel that, and to call them to\nrepentance. In this we probably see some reflection of the age: an age\nwhen men\u2019s thoughts were thrusting the Deity further and further from\ntheir life; when they put His Law and Temple between Him and\nthemselves; and when their religion, devoid of the sense of His\nPresence, had become a set of formal observances, the rending of\ngarments and not of hearts. But He, whom His own ordinances had hidden\nfrom His people, has burst forth through nature and in sheer force of\ncalamity. He has revealed Himself, El-Shaddhai, _God All-violent_, as\nHe was known to their fathers, who had no elaborate law or ritual to\nput between their fearful hearts and His terrible strength, but cowered\nbefore Him, helpless on the stripped soil, and naked beneath His\nthunder. By just these means did Elijah and Amos bring God home to the\nhearts of ancient Israel. In Joel we see the revival of the old\nnature-religion, and the revenge that it was bound to take upon the\nelaborate systems which had displaced it, but which by their formalism\nand their artificial completeness had made men forget that near\npresence and direct action of the Almighty which it is nature\u2019s own\noffice to enforce upon the heart.\n\nThe thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the great natural\nprocesses can break up the systems of dogma and ritual in which we make\nourselves comfortable and formal, and drive us out into God\u2019s open air\nof reality. In the crash of nature\u2019s forces even our particular sins\nare forgotten, and we feel, as in the immediate presence of God, our\nwhole, deep need of repentance. So far from blaming the absence of\nspecial ethics in Joel\u2019s sermon, we accept it as natural and proper to\nthe occasion.\n\nSuch, then, appears to be the explanation of the first part of the\nprophecy, and its development towards the call to repentance, which\nfollows it. If we are correct, the assertion[1185] is false that\nno plan was meant by the prophet. For not only is there a plan,\nbut the plan is most suitable to the requirements of Israel, after\ntheir adoption of the whole Law in 445, and forms one of the most\nnecessary and interesting developments of all religion: the revival,\nin an artificial period, of those primitive forces of religion which\nnature alone supplies, and which are needed to correct formalism and\nthe forgetfulness of the near presence of the Almighty. We see in\nthis, too, the reason of Joel\u2019s archaic style, both of conception and\nexpression: that likeness of his to early prophets which has led so\nmany to place him between Elijah and Amos.[1186] They are wrong. Joel\u2019s\nsimplicity is that not of early prophecy, but of the austere forces of\nthis revived and applied to the artificiality of a later age.\n\nOne other proof of Joel\u2019s conviction of the religious meaning of the\nplague might also have been pled by the earlier prophets, but certainly\nnot in the terms in which Joel expresses it. Amos and Hosea had both\ndescribed the destruction of the country\u2019s fertility in their day as\nGod\u2019s displeasure on His people and (as Hosea puts it) His divorce of\nHis Bride from Himself.[1187] But by them the physical calamities were\nnot threatened alone: banishment from the land and from enjoyment of\nits fruits was to follow upon drought, locusts and famine. In\nthreatening no captivity Joel differs entirely from the early prophets.\nIt is a mark of his late date. And he also describes the divorce\nbetween Jehovah and Israel, through the interruption of the ritual by\nthe plague, in terms and with an accent which could hardly have been\nemployed in Israel before the Exile. After the rebuilding of the Temple\nand restoration of the daily sacrifices morning and evening, the\nregular performance of the latter was regarded by the Jews with a most\nsuperstitious sense of its indispensableness to the national life.\nBefore the Exile, Jeremiah, for instance, attaches no importance to it,\nin circumstances in which it would have been not unnatural for him,\npriest as he was, to do so.[1188] But after the Exile, the greater\nscrupulousness of the religious life, and its absorption in ritual,\nlaid extraordinary emphasis upon the daily offering, which increased to\na most painful degree of anxiety as the centuries went on.[1189] The\nNew Testament speaks of _the Twelve Tribes constantly serving God day\nand night_;[1190] and Josephus, while declaring that in no siege of\nJerusalem before the last did the interruption ever take place in spite\nof the stress of famine and war combined, records the awful impression\nmade alike on Jew and heathen by the giving up of the daily sacrifice\non the 17th of July, A.D. 70, during the investment of the city by\nTitus.[1191] This disaster, which Judaism so painfully feared at every\ncrisis in its history, actually happened, Joel tells us, during the\nfamine caused by the locusts. _Cut off are the meal and the drink\nofferings from the house of Jehovah.[1192] Is not food cut off from our\neyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?[1193] Perhaps He will\nturn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, meal and drink\noffering for Jehovah our God._[1194] The break \u201cof the continual symbol\nof gracious intercourse between Jehovah and His people, and the main\noffice of religion,\u201d means divorce between Jehovah and Israel. _Wail\nlike a bride girt in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! Wail, O\nministers of the altar, O ministers of God!_[1195] This then was\nanother reason for reading in the plague of locusts more than a\nphysical meaning. This was another proof, only too intelligible to\nscrupulous Jews, that the great and terrible Day of the Lord was at\nhand.\n\nThus Joel reaches the climax of his argument. Jehovah is near, His Day\nis about to break. From this it is impossible to escape on the narrow\npath of disaster by which the prophet has led up to it. But beneath\nthat path the prophet passes the ground of a broad truth, and on that\ntruth, while judgment remains still as real, there is room for the\npeople to turn from it. If experience has shown that God is in the\npresent, near and inevitable, faith remembers that He is there not\nwillingly for judgment, but with all His ancient feeling for Israel and\nHis zeal to save her. If the people choose to turn, Jehovah, as their\nGod and as one who works for their sake, will save them. Of this God\nassures them by His own word. For the first time in the prophecy He\nspeaks for Himself. Hitherto the prophet has been describing the plague\nand summoning to penitence. _But now oracle of Jehovah of Hosts._[1196]\nThe great covenant name, _Jehovah your God_, is solemnly repeated as if\nsymbolic of the historic origin and age-long endurance of Jehovah\u2019s\nrelation to Israel; and the very words of blessing are repeated which\nwere given when Israel was called at Sinai and the covenant ratified:\u2014\n\n _For He is gracious and merciful,\n Long-suffering and plenteous in leal love,\n And relents Him of the evil_\n\nHe has threatened upon you. Once more the nation is summoned to try Him\nby prayer: the solemn prayer of all Israel, pleading that He should not\ngive His people to reproach.\n\n\n _The Word of Jehovah\n which came to Jo\u2019el the son of Peth\u00fb\u2019el._[1197]\n\n _Hear this, ye old men,\n And give ear, all inhabitants of the land!\n Has the like been in your days,\n Or in the days of your fathers?\n Tell it to your children,\n And your children to their children,\n And their children to the generation that follows.\n That which the Shearer left the Swarmer hath eaten,\n And that which the Swarmer left the Lapper hath eaten.\n And that which the Lapper left the Devourer hath eaten._\n\nThese are four different names for locusts, which it is best to\ntranslate by their literal meaning. Some think that they represent\none swarm of locusts in four stages of development, but this cannot\nbe, because the same swarm never returns upon its path, to complete\nthe work of destruction which it had begun in an earlier stage of its\ngrowth. Nor can the first-named be the adult brood from whose eggs the\nothers spring, as Doughty has described,[1198] for that would account\nonly for two of the four names. Joel rather describes successive swarms\nof the insect, without reference to the stages of its growth, and he\ndoes so as a poet, using, in order to bring out the full force of its\ndevastation, several of the Hebrew names, that were given to the locust\nas epithets of various aspects of its destructive power. The names,\nit is true, cannot be said to rise in climax, but at least the most\nsinister is reserved to the last.[1199]\n\n _Rouse ye, drunkards, and weep,\n And wail, all ye bibbers of wine!\n The new wine is cut off from your mouth!\n For a nation is come up on My land,\n Powerful and numberless;\n His teeth are the teeth of the lion,\n And the fangs[1200] of the lioness his.\n My vine he has turned to waste,\n And My fig-tree to splinters;\n He hath peeled it and strawed it,\n Bleached are its branches!_\n\n _Wail as a bride girt in sackcloth for the spouse of her youth.\n Cut off are the meal and drink offerings from the house of Jehovah!\n In grief are the priests, the ministers of Jehovah.\n The fields are blasted, the ground is in grief,\n Blasted is the corn, abashed is the new wine, the oil pines away.\n Be ye abashed, O ploughmen!\n Wail, O vine-dressers,\n For the wheat and the barley;\n The harvest is lost from the field!\n The vine is abashed, and the fig-tree is drooping;\n Pomegranate, palm too and apple,\n All trees of the field are dried up:\n Yea, joy is abashed_ and _away from the children of men._\n\nIn this passage the same feeling is attributed to men and to the fruits\nof the land: _In grief are the priests, the ground is in grief_. And it\nis repeatedly said that all alike are _abashed_. By this heavy word we\nhave sought to render the effect of the similarly sounding \u201ch\u00f4bh\u00eesha,\u201d\nthat our English version renders _ashamed_. It signifies to be\nfrustrated, and so _disheartened_, _put out_: _soured_ would be an\nequivalent, applicable to the vine and to joy and to men\u2019s hearts.\n\n _Put on_ mourning _, O priests, beat the breast;\n Wail, ye ministers of the altar;\n Come, lie down in sackcloth, O ministers of my God:\n For meal-offering and drink-offering are cut off\n from the house of your God._\n\n _Hallow a fast, summon an assembly,\n Gather[1201] all the inhabitants of the land to the house\n of your God;\n And cry to Jehovah:\n \u201cAlas for the Day! At hand is the Day of Jehovah!\n And as vehemence from the Vehement[1202] doth it come.\u201d\n Is not food cut off from before us,\n Gladness and joy from the house of our God?\n The grains shrivel under their hoes,[1203]\n The garners are desolate, the barns broken down,\n For the corn is withered\u2014what shall we put in them?[1204]\n The herds of cattle huddle together,[1205] for they have no pasture;\n Yea, the flocks of sheep are forlorn.[1206]\n To Thee, Jehovah, do I cry:\n For fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes,[1207]\n And the flame hath scorched all the trees of the field.\n The wild beasts pant up to Thee:\n For the watercourses are dry,\n And fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes._\n\nHere, with the close of chap. i., Joel\u2019s discourse takes pause, and in\nchap. ii. he begins a second with another call to repentance in face\nof the same plague. But the plague has progressed. The locusts are\ndescribed now in their invasion not of the country but of the towns, to\nwhich they pass after the country is stripped. For illustration of the\nlatter see above, p. 401. The _horn_ which is to be blown, ver. 1, is\nan _alarm horn_,[1208] to warn the people of the approach of the Day\nof the Lord, and not the Shophar which called the people to a general\nassembly, as in ver. 15.\n\n _Blow a horn in Zion,\n Sound the alarm in My holy mountain!\n Let all inhabitants of the land tremble,\n For the Day of Jehovah comes\u2014it is near!\n Day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and heavy mist.[1209]\n Like dawn scattered[1210] on the mountains,\n A people many and powerful;\n Its like has not been from of old,\n And shall not again be for years of generation upon generation.\n Before it the fire devours,[1211]\n And behind the flame consumes.\n Like the garden of Eden[1212] is the land in front,\n And behind it a desolate desert;\n Yea, it lets nothing escape.\n Their visage is the visage of horses,\n And like horsemen they run.\n They rattle like chariots over the tops of the hills,\n Like the crackle of flames devouring stubble,\n Like a powerful people prepared for battle.\n Peoples are writhing before them,\n Every face gathers blackness._\n\n _Like warriors they run,\n Like fighting-men they come up the wall;\n They march every man by himself,[1213]\n And they ravel[1214] not their paths.\n None jostles his comrade,\n They march every man on his track,[1215]\n And plunge through the missiles unbroken.[1216]\n They scour the city, run upon the walls,\n Climb into the houses, and enter the windows like a thief.\n Earth trembles before them,\n Heaven quakes,\n Sun and moon become black,\n The stars withdraw their shining.\n And Jehovah utters His voice before His army:\n For very great is His host;\n Yea, powerful is He that performeth His word.\n Great is the Day of Jehovah, and very awful:\n Who may abide it?_[1217]\n\n _But now_ hear _the oracle of Jehovah:\n Turn ye to Me with all your heart,\n And with fasting and weeping and mourning.\n Rend ye your hearts and not your garments,\n And turn to Jehovah your God:\n For He is gracious and merciful,\n Long-suffering and plenteous in love,\n And relents of the evil.\n Who knows but He will turn and relent,\n And leave behind Him a blessing,\n Meal-offering and drink-offering to Jehovah your God?_\n\n _Blow a horn in Zion,\n Hallow a fast, summon the assembly!\n Gather the people, hallow the congregation,\n Assemble the old men,[1218] gather the children, and\n infants at the breast;\n Let the bridegroom come forth from his chamber,\n And the bride from her bower.[1219]\n Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep\n between porch and altar;\n Let them say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people,\n And give not Thine heritage to dishonour, for the\n heathen to mock them:[1220]\n Why should it be said among the nations, Where is\n their God?_\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1160] _Arabia Deserta_, p. 307.\n\n[1161] _Arabia Deserta_, p. 335.\n\n[1162] _Id._, 396.\n\n[1163] _Id._, 335.\n\n[1164] Barrow, _South Africa_, p. 257, quoted by Pusey.\n\n[1165] _Impressions of South Africa_, by James Bryce: Macmillans, 1897.\n\n[1166] Volney, _Voyage en Syrie_, I. 277, quoted by Pusey.\n\n[1167] Lebanon.\n\n[1168] Abridged from Thomson\u2019s _The Land and the Book_, ed. 1877,\nNorthern Palestine, pp. 416 ff.\n\n[1169] From Driver\u2019s abridgment (_Joel and Amos_, p. 90) of an account\nin the _Journ. of Sacred Lit._, October 1865, pp. 235 f.\n\n[1170] Morier, _A Second Journey through Persia_, p. 99, quoted by\nPusey, from whose notes and Driver\u2019s excursus upon locusts in _Joel and\nAmos_ the following quotations have been borrowed.\n\n[1171] Shaw\u2019s _Travels in Barbary_, 1738, pp. 236-8; Jackson\u2019s _Travels\nto Morocco_.\n\n[1172] Adansson, _Voyage au S\u00e9negal_, p. 88.\n\n[1173] Ch\u00e9nier, _Recherches Historiques sur les Maures_, III., p. 496.\n\n[1174] Burckhardt, _Notes_, II. 90.\n\n[1175] Barrow, _South Africa_, p. 257.\n\n[1176] _Journ. of Sac. Lit._, October 1865.\n\n[1177] Lichtenstein, _Travels in South Africa_.\n\n[1178] _Standard_, December 25th, 1896.\n\n[1179] Fr. Alvarez.\n\n[1180] Barheb., _Chron. Syr._, p. 784; Burckhardt, _Notes_, II. 90.\n\n[1181] i. 20, 17.\n\n[1182] i. 19.\n\n[1183] i. 5.\n\n[1184] Cf. i. 12, 13, and many verses in chap. ii.\n\n[1185] Of Merx and others: see above, p. 394.\n\n[1186] See above, p. 377.\n\n[1187] See Vol. I., pp. 242, 245 f.\n\n[1188] Jer. xiv.\n\n[1189] Cf. Ezek. xlvi. 15 on the Thamid, and Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11,\nxi. 31, xii. 11: cf. p. 382.\n\n[1190] Acts xxvi. 7.\n\n[1191] XIV. _Antt._ iv. 3, xvi. 2; VI. _Wars_ ii. 1.\n\n[1192] i. 9, 13.\n\n[1193] i. 16.\n\n[1194] ii. 14.\n\n[1195] i. 8, 13.\n\n[1196] ii. 12.\n\n[1197] LXX. \u0392\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03ae\u03bb\n\n[1198] See above, pp. 399 f.\n\n[1199]\u200e \u05d7\u05e1\u05d9\u05dc from \u05d7\u05e1\u05dc, used in the O.T. only in Deut. xxviii. 38,\n_to devour_; but in post-biblical Hebrew _to utterly destroy_, _bring\nto an end_. _Talmud Jerus._: Taanith III. 66_d_, \u201cWhy is the locust\ncalled \u05d7\u05e1\u05d9\u05dc? Because it brings everything to an end.\u201d\n\n[1200] A.V. _cheek-teeth_, R.V. _jaw-teeth_, or _eye-teeth_. \u201cPossibly\n(from the Arabic) _projectors_\u201d: Driver.\n\n[1201] Heb. text inserts _elders_, which may be taken as vocative, or\nwith the LXX. as accusative, but after the latter we should expect\n_and_. Wellhausen suggests its deletion, and Nowack regards it as an\nintrusion. For \u05d0\u05e1\u05e4\u05d5 Wellhausen reads \u05d4\u05d0\u05e1\u05e4\u05d5, _be ye gathered_.\n\n[1202] Kesh\u014ddh mishshaddhai (Isa. xiii. 6); Driver, _as overpowering\nfrom the Overpowerer_.\n\n[1203] A.V. _clods_. \u05de\u05d2\u05e8\u05e4\u05d5\u05ea\u05d9\u05d4\u05dd: the meaning is doubtful, but the\ncorresponding Arabic word means _besom_ or _shovel_ or (_P.E.F.Q._,\n1891, p. 111, with plate) _hoe_, and the Aram. _shovel_. See Driver\u2019s\nnote.\n\n[1204] Reading, after the LXX. \u03c4\u03af \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 (probably an error\nfor \u1f10\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2), \u05de\u05d4 \u05e0\u05e0\u05d9\u05d7\u05d4 \u05d1\u05d4\u05dd for the Massoretic \u05de\u05d4 \u05e0\u05d0\u05e0\u05d7\u05d4 \u05d1\u05d4\u05de\u05d4 _How the\nbeasts sob!_ to which A.V. and Driver adhere.\n\n[1205] Lit. _press themselves_ in perplexity.\n\n[1206] Reading, with Wellhausen and Nowack (\u201cperhaps rightly,\u201d Driver)\n\u05e0\u05e9\u05de\u05d5 for \u05e0\u05d0\u05e9\u05de\u05d5, _are guilty_ or _punished_.\n\n[1207]\u200e \u05de\u05d3\u05d1\u05e8, usually rendered _wilderness_ or _desert_, but\nliterally _place where the sheep are driven_, land not cultivated. See\n_Hist. Geog._, p. 656.\n\n[1208] See on Amos iii. 6: Vol. I., p. 82.\n\n[1209] Zeph. i. 15. See above, p. 58.\n\n[1210]\u200e \u05e4\u05e8\u05e9\u05c2 in Qal _to spread abroad_, but the passive is here to\nbe taken in the same sense as the Ni. in Ezek. xvii. 21, _dispersed_.\nThe figure is of dawn crushed by and struggling with a mass of cloud\nand mist, and expresses the gleams of white which so often break\nthrough a locust cloud. See above, p. 404.\n\n[1211] So travellers have described the effect of locusts. See above,\np. 403.\n\n[1212] Ezek. xxxvi. 35.\n\n[1213] Heb. _in his own ways_.\n\n[1214]\u200e \u05d9\u05e2\u05d1\u05d8\u05d5\u05df, an impossible metaphor, so that most read \u05d9\u05e2\u05d1\u05ea\u05d5\u05df, a\nroot found only in Micah vii. 3 (see Vol. I., p. 428), _to twist_ or\n_tangle_; but Wellhausen reads \u05d9\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05d5\u05b0\u05bc\u05ea\u05d5\u05bc\u05df, _twist_, Eccles. vii. 13.\n\n[1215] Heb. _highroad_, as if defined and heaped up for him alone.\n\n[1216] See above, p. 401.\n\n[1217] Zeph. i. 14; \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 2.\n\n[1218] So (and not _elders_) in contrast to children.\n\n[1219] _Canopy_ or _pavilion_, bridal tent.\n\n[1220]\u200e \u05dc\u05de\u05e9\u05dc \u05d1\u05dd, which may mean either _rule over them_ or _mock\nthem_, but the parallelism decides for the latter.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIX\n\n _PROSPERITY AND THE SPIRIT_\n\n JOEL ii. 18-32 (Eng.; ii. 18\u2014iii. Heb.)\n\n\n_Then did Jehovah become jealous for His land, and took pity upon His\npeople_\u2014with these words Joel opens the second half of his book. Our\nAuthorised Version renders them in the future tense, as the\ncontinuation of the prophet\u2019s discourse, which had threatened the Day\nof the Lord, urged the people to penitence, and now promises that their\npenitence shall be followed by the Lord\u2019s mercy. But such a rendering\nforces the grammar;[1221] and the Revised English Version is right in\ntaking the verbs, as the vast majority of critics do, in the past.\nJoel\u2019s call to repentance has closed, and has been successful. The fast\nhas been hallowed, the prayers are heard. Probably an interval has\nelapsed between vv. 17 and 18, but in any case, the people having\nrepented, nothing more is said of their need of doing so, and instead\nwe have from God Himself a series of promises, vv. 19-27, in answer to\ntheir cry for mercy. These promises relate to the physical calamity\nwhich has been suffered. God will destroy the locusts, still impending\non the land, and restore the years which His great army has eaten.\nThere follows in vv. 28-32 (Eng.; Heb. chap, iii.) the promise of a\ngreat outpouring of the Spirit on all Israel, amid terrible\nmanifestations in heaven and earth.\n\n\n 1. THE RETURN OF PROSPERITY (ii. 19-27).\n\n _And Jehovah answered and said to His people:\n Lo, I will send you corn and wine and oil,\n And your fill shall ye have of them;\n And I will not again make you a reproach among the heathen.\n And the Northern_ Foe[1222] _will I remove far from you;\n And I will push him into a land barren and waste,\n His van to the eastern sea and his rear to the western,[1223]\n Till the stench of him rises,[1224]\n Because he hath done greatly._\n\nLocusts disappear with the same suddenness as they arrive. A wind\nsprings up and they are gone.[1225] Dead Sea and Mediterranean are at\nthe extremes of the compass, but there is no reason to suppose that\nthe prophet has abandoned the realism which has hitherto distinguished\nhis treatment of the locusts. The plague covered the whole land, on\nwhose high watershed the winds suddenly veer and change. The dispersion\nof the locusts upon the deserts and the opposite seas was therefore\npossible at one and the same time. Jerome vouches for an instance in\nhis own day. The other detail is also true to life. Jerome says that\nthe beaches of the two seas were strewn with putrifying locusts, and\nAugustine[1226] quotes heathen writers in evidence of large masses\nof locusts, driven from Africa upon the sea, and then cast up on the\nshore, which gave rise to a pestilence. \u201cThe south and east winds,\u201d\nsays Volney of Syria, \u201cdrive the clouds of locusts with violence\ninto the Mediterranean, and drown them in such quantities, that when\ntheir dead are cast on the shore they infect the air to a great\ndistance.\u201d[1227] The prophet continues, celebrating this destruction\nof the locusts as if it were already realised\u2014_the Lord hath done\ngreatly_, ver. 21. That among the blessings he mentions a full supply\nof rain proves that we were right in interpreting him to have spoken of\ndrought as accompanying the locusts.[1228]\n\n _Fear not, O Land! Rejoice and be glad,\n For Jehovah hath done greatly.[1229]\n Fear not, O beasts of the field!\n For the pastures of the steppes are springing with new grass,\n The trees bear their fruit,\n Fig-tree and vine yield their substance.\n O sons of Zion, be glad,\n And rejoice in Jehovah your God:\n For He hath given you the early rain in normal measure,[1230]\n And poured[1231] on you winter rain[1232] and latter rain as\n before.[1233]\n And the threshing-floors shall be full of wheat,\n And the vats stream over with new wine and oil.\n And I will restore to you the years which the Swarmer has eaten,\n The Lapper, the Devourer and the Shearer,\n My great army whom I sent among you.\n And ye shall eat your food and be full,\n And praise the Name of Jehovah your God,\n Who hath dealt so wondrously with you;\n And My people shall be abashed nevermore.\n Ye shall know I am in the midst of Israel,\n That I am Jehovah your God and none else;\n And nevermore shall My people be abashed._\n\n\n 2. THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT\n\n (ii. 28-32 Eng.; iii. Heb.).\n\nUpon these promises of physical blessing there follows another of the\npouring forth of the Spirit: the prophecy by which Joel became the\nProphet of Pentecost, and through which his book is best known among\nChristians.\n\nWhen fertility has been restored to the land, the seasons again run\ntheir normal courses, and the people eat their food and be full\u2014_It\nshall come to pass after these things, I will pour out My Spirit upon\nall flesh_. The order of events makes us pause to question: does Joel\nmean to imply that physical prosperity must precede spiritual fulness?\nIt would be unfair to assert that he does, without remembering what he\nunderstands by the physical blessings. To Joel these are the token that\nGod has returned to His people. The drought and the famine produced by\nthe locusts were signs of His anger and of His divorce of the land. The\nproofs that He has relented, and taken Israel back into a spiritual\nrelation to Himself, can, therefore, from Joel\u2019s point of view, only be\ngiven by the healing of the people\u2019s wounds. In plenteous rains and\nfull harvests God sets His seal to man\u2019s penitence. Rain and harvest\nare not merely physical benefits, but religious sacraments: signs that\nGod has returned to His people, and that His zeal is again stirred on\ntheir behalf.[1234] This has to be made clear before there can be talk\nof any higher blessing. God has to return to His people and to show His\nlove for them before He pours forth His Spirit upon them. That is what\nJoel intends by the order he pursues, and not that a certain stage of\nphysical comfort is indispensable to a high degree of spiritual feeling\nand experience. The early and latter rains, the fulness of corn, wine\nand oil, are as purely religious to Joel, though not so highly\nreligious, as the phenomena of the Spirit in men.\n\nBut though that be an adequate answer to our question so far as Joel\nhimself is concerned, it does not exhaust the question with regard to\nhistory in general. From Joel\u2019s own standpoint physical blessings may\nhave been as religious as spiritual; but we must go further, and assert\nthat for Joel\u2019s anticipation of the baptism of the Spirit by a return\nof prosperity there is an ethical reason and one which is permanently\nvalid in history. A certain degree of prosperity, and even of comfort,\nis an indispensable condition of that universal and lavish exercise of\nthe religious faculties, which Joel pictures under the pouring forth of\nGod\u2019s Spirit.\n\nThe history of prophecy itself furnishes us with proofs of this. When\ndid prophecy most flourish in Israel? When had the Spirit of God most\nfreedom in developing the intellectual and moral nature of Israel? Not\nwhen the nation was struggling with the conquest and settlement of the\nland, not when it was engaged with the embarrassments and privations of\nthe Syrian wars; but an Amos, a Hosea, an Isaiah came forth at the end\nof the long, peaceful and prosperous reigns of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah.\nThe intellectual strength and liberty of the great Prophet of the\nExile, his deep insight into God\u2019s purposes and his large view of the\nfuture, had not been possible without the security and comparative\nprosperity of the Jews in Babylon, from among whom he wrote. In Haggai\nand Zechariah, on the other hand, who worked in the hunger-bitten\ncolony of returned exiles, there was no such fulness of the Spirit.\nProphecy, we saw,[1235] was then starved by the poverty and meanness of\nthe national life from which it rose. All this is very explicable. When\nmen are stunned by such a calamity as Joel describes, or when they are\nengrossed by the daily struggle with bitter enemies and a succession of\nbad seasons, they may feel the need of penitence and be able to speak\nwith decision upon the practical duty of the moment, to a degree not\nattainable in better days, but they lack the leisure, the freedom and\nthe resources amid which their various faculties of mind and soul can\nalone respond to the Spirit\u2019s influence.\n\nHas it been otherwise in the history of Christianity? Our Lord Himself\nfound His first disciples, not in a hungry and ragged community, but\namid the prosperity and opulence of Galilee. They left all to follow\nHim and achieved their ministry in poverty and persecution, but they\nbrought to that ministry the force of minds and bodies trained in a\nvery fertile land and by a prosperous commerce.[1236] Paul, in his\napostolate, sustained himself by the labour of his hands, but he was\nthe child of a rich civilisation and the citizen of a great empire. The\nReformation was preceded by the Renaissance, and on the Continent of\nEurope drew its forces, not from the enslaved and impoverished\npopulations of Italy and Southern Austria, but from the large civic and\ncommercial centres of Germany. An acute historian, in his recent\nlectures on the _Economic Interpretation of History_,[1237] observes\nthat every religious revival in England has happened upon a basis of\ncomparative prosperity. He has proved \u201cthe opulence of Norfolk during\nthe epoch of Lollardy,\u201d and pointed out that \u201cthe Puritan movement was\nessentially and originally one of the middle classes, of the traders in\ntowns and of the farmers in the country\u201d; that the religious state of\nthe Church of England was never so low as among the servile and\nbeggarly clergy of the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth\ncenturies; that the Nonconformist bodies who kept religion alive during\nthis period were closely identified with the leading movements of trade\nand finance;[1238] and that even Wesley\u2019s great revival of religion\namong the labouring classes of England took place at a time when prices\nwere far lower than in the previous century, wages had slightly risen\nand \u201cmost labourers were small occupiers; there was therefore in the\ncomparative plenty of the time an opening for a religious movement\namong the poor, and Wesley was equal to the occasion.\u201d He might have\nadded that the great missionary movement of the nineteenth century is\ncontemporaneous with the enormous advance of our commerce and our\nempire.\n\nOn the whole, then, the witness of history is uniform. Poverty and\npersecution, _famine_, _nakedness_, _peril and sword_, put a keenness\nupon the spirit of religion, while luxury rots its very fibres; but\na stable basis of prosperity is indispensable to every social and\nreligious reform, and God\u2019s Spirit finds fullest course in communities\nof a certain degree of civilisation and of freedom from sordidness.\n\nWe may draw from this an impressive lesson for our own day. Joel\npredicts that, upon the new prosperity of his land, the lowest classes\nof society shall be permeated by the spirit of prophecy. Is it not part\nof the secret of the failure of Christianity to enlist large portions\nof our population, that the basis of their life is so sordid and\ninsecure? Have we not yet to learn from the Hebrew prophets, that some\namount of freedom in a people and some amount of health are\nindispensable to a revival of religion? Lives which are strained and\nstarved, lives which are passed in rank discomfort and under grinding\npoverty, without the possibility of the independence of the individual\nor of the sacredness of the home, cannot be religious except in the\nmost rudimentary sense of the word. For the revival of energetic\nreligion among such lives we must wait for a better distribution, not\nof wealth, but of the bare means of comfort, leisure and security.\nWhen, to our penitence and our striving, God restores the years which\nthe locust has eaten, when the social plagues of rich men\u2019s selfishness\nand the poverty of the very poor are lifted from us, then may we look\nfor the fulfilment of Joel\u2019s prediction\u2014_even upon all the slaves and\nupon the handmaidens will I pour out My Spirit in those days_.\n\nThe economic problem, therefore, has also its place in the warfare for\nthe kingdom of God.\n\n _And it shall be that after such things, I will pour out\n My Spirit on all flesh;\n And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,\n Your old men shall dream dreams,\n Your young men shall see visions:\n And even upon all the slaves and the handmaidens\n in those days will I pour out My Spirit.\n And I will set signs in heaven and on earth,\n Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.\n The sun shall be turned to darkness,\n And the moon to blood,\n Before the coming of the Day of Jehovah, the great and the awful.\n And it shall be that every one who calls on the name\n of Jehovah shall be saved:\n For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be a remnant,\n as Jehovah hath spoken,\n And among the fugitives _those_ whom Jehovah calleth._\n\nThis prophecy divides into two parts\u2014the outpouring of the Spirit, and\nthe appearance of the terrible Day of the Lord.\n\nThe Spirit of God is to be poured _on all flesh_, says the prophet.\nBy this term, which is sometimes applied to all things that breathe,\nand sometimes to mankind as a whole,[1239] Joel means Israel only:\nthe heathen are to be destroyed.[1240] Nor did Peter, when he quoted\nthe passage at the Day of Pentecost, mean anything more. He spoke to\nJews and proselytes: _for the promise is to you and your children,\nand to them that are afar off_: it was not till afterwards that he\ndiscovered that the Holy Ghost was granted to the Gentiles, and then\nhe was unready for the revelation and surprised by it.[1241] But within\nJoel\u2019s Israel the operation of the Spirit was to be at once thorough\nand universal. All classes would be affected, and affected so that the\nsimplest and rudest would become prophets.\n\nThe limitation was therefore not without its advantages. In the earlier\nstages of all religions, it is impossible to be both extensive and\nintensive. With a few exceptions, the Israel of Joel\u2019s time was a\nnarrow and exclusive body, hating and hated by other peoples. Behind\nthe Law it kept itself strictly aloof. But without doing so, Israel\ncould hardly have survived or prepared itself at that time for its\ninfluence on the world. Heathenism threatened it from all sides with\nthe most insidious of infections; and there awaited it in the near\nfuture a still more subtle and powerful means of disintegration. In the\nwake of Alexander\u2019s expeditions, Hellenism poured across all the East.\nThere was not a community nor a religion, save Israel\u2019s, which was not\nHellenised. That Israel remained Israel, in spite of Greek arms and the\nGreek mind, was due to the legalism of Ezra and Nehemiah, and to what\nwe call the narrow enthusiasm of Joel. The hearts which kept their\npassion so confined felt all the deeper for its limits. They would be\nsatisfied with nothing less than the inspiration of every Israelite,\nthe fulfilment of the prayer of Moses: _Would to God that all Jehovah\u2019s\npeople were prophets!_ And of itself this carries Joel\u2019s prediction to\na wider fulfilment. A nation of prophets is meant for the world. But\neven the best of men do not see the full force of the truth God gives\nto them, nor follow it even to its immediate consequences. Few of the\nprophets did so, and at first none of the apostles. Joel does not\nhesitate to say that the heathen shall be destroyed. He does not think\nof Israel\u2019s mission as foretold by the Second Isaiah; nor of\n\u201cMalachi\u2019s\u201d vision of the heathen waiting upon Jehovah. But in the near\nfuture of Israel there was waiting another prophet to carry Joel\u2019s\ndoctrine to its full effect upon the world, to rescue the gospel of\nGod\u2019s grace from the narrowness of legalism and the awful pressure of\nApocalypse, and by the parable of Jonah, the type of the prophet\nnation, to show to Israel that God had granted to the Gentiles also\nrepentance unto life.\n\nThat it was the lurid clouds of Apocalypse, which thus hemmed in our\nprophet\u2019s view, is clear from the next verses. They bring the terrible\nmanifestations of God\u2019s wrath in nature very closely upon the lavish\noutpouring of the Spirit: _the sun turned to darkness and the moon\nto blood, the great and terrible Day of the Lord_. Apocalypse must\nalways paralyse the missionary energies of religion. Who can think of\nconverting the world, when the world is about to be convulsed? There is\nonly time for a remnant to be saved.\n\nBut when we get rid of Apocalypse, as the Book of Jonah does, then we\nhave time and space opened up again, and the essential forces of such\na prophecy of the Spirit as Joel has given us burst their national and\ntemporary confines, and are seen to be applicable to all mankind.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1221] A.V., adhering to the Massoretic text, in which the verbs are\npointed for the past, has evidently understood them as instances of the\nprophetic perfect. But \u201cthis is grammatically indefensible\u201d: Driver,\n_in loco_; see his _Heb. Tenses_, \u00a7 82, _Obs._ Calvin and others, who\ntake the verbs of ver. 18 as future, accept those of the next verse\nas past and with it begin the narrative. But if God\u2019s answer to His\npeople\u2019s prayer be in the past, so must His jealousy and pity. All\nthese verbs are in the same sequence of time. Merx proposes to change\nthe vowel-points of the verbs and turn them into futures. But see\nabove, p. 395. Ver. 21 shows that Jehovah\u2019s action is past, and Nowack\npoints out the very unusual character of the construction that would\nfollow from Merx\u2019s emendation. Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Robertson Smith,\nDavidson, Robertson, Steiner, Wellhausen, Driver, Nowack, etc., all\ntake the verbs in the past.\n\n[1222] This is scarcely a name for the locusts, who, though they\nmight reach Palestine from the N.E. under certain circumstances,\ncame generally from E. and S.E. But see above, p. 397: so Kuenen,\nWellhausen, Nowack. W. R. Smith suggests the whole verse as an\nallegorising gloss. Hitzig thought of the locusts only, and rendered\n\u05d4\u05e6\u05e4\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9 \u1f41 \u03c4\u03c5\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2, Acts xxvii. 14; but this is not proved.\n\n[1223] _I.e._ the Dead Sea (Ezek. xlvii. 18; Zech. xiv. 8) and the\nMediterranean.\n\n[1224] The construction shows that the clause preceding this, \u05d5\u05e2\u05dc\u05d4\n\u05d1\u05d0\u05e9\u05d5, is a gloss. So Driver. But Nowack gives the other clause as the\ngloss.\n\n[1225] Nah. iii. 17; Exod. x. 19.\n\n[1226] _De Civitate Dei_, III. 31.\n\n[1227] I. 278, quoted by Pusey.\n\n[1228] i. 17-20: see above, p. 403.\n\n[1229] Prophetic past: Driver.\n\n[1230] Opinion is divided as to the meaning of this phrase: \u05dc\u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4\n= _for righteousness_. A. There are those who take it as having a\n_moral_ reference; and (1) this is so emphatic to some that they\nrender the word for _early rain_, \u05de\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4, which also means _teacher_ or\n_revealer_, in the latter significance. So (some of them applying it\nto the Messiah) Targum, Symmachus, the Vulgate, _doctorem justiti\u00e6_,\nsome Jews, _e.g._ Rashi and Abarbanel, and some moderns, _e.g._ (at\nopposite extremes) Pusey and Merx. But, as Calvin points out (this\nis another instance of his sanity as an exegete, and refusal to be\nled by theological presuppositions: he says, \u201cI do not love strained\nexpositions\u201d), this does not agree with the context, which speaks not\nof spiritual but wholly of physical blessings. (2) Some, who take\n\u05de\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 as _early rain_, give \u05dc\u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4 the meaning _for righteousness_,\n_ad justitiam_, either in the sense that God will give the rain as a\ntoken of His own righteousness, or in order to restore or vindicate\nthe people\u2019s righteousness (so Davidson, _Expositor_, 1888, I., p. 203\nn.), in the frequent sense in which \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4 is employed in Isa. xl. ff.\n(see _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._, Expositor\u2019s Bible, pp. 219 ff.). Cf. Hosea\nx. 13, \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7; above, Vol. I., p. 289, n. 2. This of course is possible,\nespecially in view of Israel having been made by their plagues a\nreproach among the heathen. Still, if Joel had intended this meaning,\nhe would have applied the phrase, not to the _early rain_ only, but\nto the whole series of blessings by which the people were restored to\ntheir standing before God. B. It seems, therefore, right to take \u05dc\u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4\nin a purely physical sense, of the measure or quality of the _early\nrain_. So even Calvin, _rain according to what is just_ or _fit_;\nA.V. _moderately_ (inexact); R.V. _in just measure_; Siegfried-Stade\n_sufficient_. The root-meaning of \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7 is probably _according to norm_\n(cf. _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._, p. 215), and in that case the meaning would\nbe _rain of normal quantity_. This too suits the parallel in the next\nclause: _as formerly_. In Himyaritic the word is applied to good\nharvests. A man prays to God for \u05d0\u05e4\u05e7\u05dc \u05d5\u05d0\u05ea\u05b9\u05de\u05e8 \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05dd, _full_ or _good\nharvests and fruits_: _Corp. Inscr. Sem._, Pars Quarta, Tomus I., No.\n2, lin. 1-5; cf. the note.\n\n[1231] Driver, _in loco_.\n\n[1232] Heb. also repeats here _early rain_, but redundantly.\n\n[1233]\u200e \u05d1\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05d5\u05df, _in the first_. A.V. adds _month_. But LXX. and Syr.\nread \u05db\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05e0\u05e0\u05d4, which is probably the correct reading, _as before_ or\n_formerly_.\n\n[1234] i. 18.\n\n[1235] Above, p. 189.\n\n[1236] Cf. _Hist. Geog._, Chap. XXI., especially p. 463.\n\n[1237] By Thorold Rogers, pp. 80 ff.\n\n[1238] _E.g._ the Quakers and the Independents. The Independents of the\nseventeenth century \u201cwere the founders of the Bank of England.\u201d\n\n[1239] All living things, Gen. vi. 17, 19, etc.; mankind, Isa. xl. 5,\nxlix. 26. See Driver\u2019s note.\n\n[1240] Next chapter.\n\n[1241] Acts x. 45.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXX\n\n _THE JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN_\n\n JOEL iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.)\n\n\nHitherto Joel has spoken no syllable of the heathen, except to pray\nthat God by His plagues will not give Israel to be mocked by them.\nBut in the last chapter of the Book we have Israel\u2019s captivity to the\nheathen taken for granted, a promise made that it will be removed and\ntheir land set free from the foreigner. Certain nations are singled\nout for judgment, which is described in the terms of Apocalypse; and\nthe Book closes with the vision, already familiar in prophecy, of a\nsupernatural fertility for the land.\n\nIt is quite another horizon and far different interests from those of\nthe preceding chapter. Here for the first time we may suspect the unity\nof the Book, and listen to suggestions of another authorship than\nJoel\u2019s. But these can scarcely be regarded as conclusive. Every\nprophet, however national his interests, feels it his duty to express\nhimself upon the subject of foreign peoples, and Joel may well have\ndone so. Only, in that case, his last chapter was delivered by him at\nanother time and in different circumstances from the rest of his\nprophecies. Chaps. i.\u2014ii. (Eng.; i.\u2014iii. Heb.) are complete in\nthemselves. Chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) opens without any connection of\ntime or subject with those that precede it.[1242]\n\nThe time of the prophecy is a time when Israel\u2019s fortunes are at low\nebb,[1243] her sons scattered among the heathen, her land, in part at\nleast, held by foreigners. But it would appear (though this is not\nexpressly said, and must rather be inferred from the general proofs of\na post-exilic date) that Jerusalem is inhabited. Nothing is said to\nimply that the city needs to be restored.[1244]\n\nAll the heathen nations are to be brought together for judgment into a\ncertain valley, which the prophet calls first the Vale of Jehoshaphat\nand then the Vale of Decision. The second name leads us to infer that\nthe first, which means _Jehovah-judges_, is also symbolic. That is to\nsay, the prophet does not single out a definite valley already called\nJehoshaphat. In all probability, however, he has in his mind\u2019s eye some\nvale in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, for since Ezekiel[1245] the\njudgment of the heathen in face of Jerusalem has been a standing\nfeature in Israel\u2019s vision of the last things; and as no valley about\nthat city lends itself to the picture of judgment so well as the valley\nof the Kedron with the slopes of Olivet, the name Jehoshaphat has\nnaturally been applied to it.[1246] Certain nations are singled out by\nname. These are not Assyria and Babylon, which had long ago perished,\nnor the Samaritans, Moab and Ammon, which harassed the Jews in the\nearly days of the Return from Babylon, but Tyre, Sidon, Philistia, Edom\nand Egypt. The crime of the first three is the robbery of Jewish\ntreasures, not necessarily those of the Temple, and the selling into\nslavery of many Jews. The crime of Edom and Egypt is that they have\nshed the innocent blood of Jews. To what precise events these charges\nrefer we have no means of knowing in our present ignorance of Syrian\nhistory after Nehemiah. That the chapter has no explicit reference to\nthe cruelties of Artaxerxes Ochus in 360 would seem to imply for it a\ndate earlier than that year. But it is possible that ver. 17 refers to\nthat, the prophet refraining from accusing the Persians for the very\ngood reason that Israel was still under their rule.\n\nAnother feature worthy of notice is that the Ph\u0153nicians are accused of\nselling Jews to the sons of the Jevan\u00eem, Ionians or Greeks.[1247] The\nlatter lie on the far horizon of the prophet,[1248] and we know from\nclassical writers that from the fifth century onwards numbers of Syrian\nslaves were brought to Greece. The other features of the chapter are\nborrowed from earlier prophets.\n\n _For, behold, in those days and in that time,\n When I bring again the captivity[1249] of Judah and Jerusalem,\n I will also gather all the nations,\n And bring them down to the Vale of Jehoshaphat;[1250]\n And I will enter into judgment with them there,\n For My people and for My heritage Israel,\n Whom they have scattered among the heathen,\n And My land have they divided.\n And they have cast lots for My people:[1251]\n They have given a boy for a harlot,[1252]\n And a girl have they sold for wine and drunk it.\n And again, what are ye to Me, Tyre and Sidon and\n all circuits of Philistia?[1253]\n Is it any deed of Mine ye are repaying?\n Or are ye doing anything to Me?[1254]\n Swiftly, speedily will I return your deed on your head,\n Who have taken My silver and My gold,\n And My goodly jewels ye have brought into your palaces.\n The sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem have ye\n sold to the sons of the Greeks,\n In order that ye might set them as far _as possible_\n from their own border.\n Lo! I will stir them up from the place to which ye\n have sold them,\n And I will return your deed upon your head.\n I will sell your sons and your daughters into the\n hands of the sons of Judah,\n And they shall sell them to the Shebans,[1255]\n To a nation far off; for Jehovah hath spoken.\n Proclaim this among the heathen, hallow a war.\n Wake up the warriors, let all the fighting-men muster\n and go up.[1256]\n Beat your ploughshares into swords,\n And your pruning-hooks into lances.\n Let the weakling say, I am strong.\n ...[1257] and come, all ye nations round about,\n And gather yourselves together.\n Thither bring down Thy warriors, Jehovah.\n Let the heathen be roused,\n And come up to the Vale of Jehoshaphat,\n For there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.\n Put in the sickle,[1258] for ripe is the harvest.\n Come, get you down; for the press is full,\n The vats overflow, great is their wickedness.\n Multitudes, multitudes in the Vale of Decision!\n For near is Jehovah\u2019s day in the Vale of Decision.\n Sun and moon have turned black,\n And the stars withdrawn their shining.\n Jehovah thunders from Zion,\n And from Jerusalem gives[1259] forth His voice:\n Heaven and earth do quake.\n But Jehovah is a refuge to His people,\n And for a fortress to the sons of Israel.\n And ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God,\n Who dwell in Zion, the mount of My holiness;\n And Jerusalem shall be holy,\n Strangers shall not pass through her again.\n And it shall be on that day\n The mountains shall drop sweet wine,\n And the hills be liquid with milk,\n And all the channels of Judah flow with water;\n A fountain shall spring from the house of Jehovah,\n And shall water the Wady of Shittim.[1260]\n Egypt shall be desolation,\n And Edom desert-land,\n For the outrage done to the children of Judah,\n Because they shed innocent blood in their land.\n Judah shall abide peopled for ever,\n And Jerusalem for generation upon generation.\n And I will declare innocent their blood,[1261] which I have\n not declared innocent,\n By[1262] Jehovah who dwelleth in Zion._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1242] I am unable to feel Driver\u2019s and Nowack\u2019s arguments for a\nconnection conclusive. The only reason Davidson gives is (p. 204) that\nthe judgment of the heathen is an essential element in the Day of\nJehovah, a reason which does not make Joel\u2019s authorship of the last\nchapter certain, but only possible.\n\n[1243] The phrase of ver. 1, _when I turn again the captivity of Judah\nand Jerusalem_, may be rendered _when I restore the fortunes of Israel_.\n\n[1244] See above, p. 386, especially n. 1130.\n\n[1245] xxxviii.\n\n[1246] Some have unnecessarily thought of the Vale of Berakhah, in\nwhich Jehoshaphat defeated Moab, Ammon and Edom (2 Chron. xx.).\n\n[1247] See above, p. 381, nn. 1114, 1115.\n\n[1248] Ver. 6_b_.\n\n[1249] Or _turn again the fortunes_.\n\n[1250] _Jehovah-judges._ See above, p. 432.\n\n[1251] See above, Obadiah 11 and Nahum iii. 10.\n\n[1252]\u200e \u05d1\u05d6\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4. Oort suggests \u05d1\u05de\u05d6\u05d5\u05df, _for food_.\n\n[1253] Gelil\u00f4th, the plural feminine of Galilee\u2014the _circuit_ (of the\nGentiles). _Hist. Geog._, p. 413.\n\n[1254] Scil. _that I must repay_.\n\n[1255] LXX. _they shall give them into captivity_.\n\n[1256] Technical use of \u05e2\u05dc\u05d4, _to go up to war_.\n\n[1257]\u200e \u05e2\u05d5\u05e9\u05d5, not found elsewhere, but supposed to mean _gather_.\nCf. Zeph. ii. 1. Others read \u05d7\u05d5\u05e9\u05d5, _hasten_ (Driver); Wellhausen \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8\u05d5.\n\n[1258]\u200e \u05de\u05d2\u05bc\u05dc, only here and in Jer. l. 16: other Heb. word for\nsickle \u1e25ermesh (Deut. xvi. 9, xxiii. 26).\n\n[1259] Driver, future.\n\n[1260] Not the well-known scene of early Israel\u2019s camp across Jordan,\nbut it must be some dry and desert valley near Jerusalem (so most\ncomm.). Nowack thinks of the Wadi el Sant on the way to Askalon, but\nthis did not need watering and is called the Vale of Elah.\n\n[1261] Merx applies this to the Jews of the Messianic era. LXX. read\n\u1f10\u03ba\u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9 = \u05d5\u05e0\u05e7\u05de\u05ea\u05d9. So Syr. Cf. 2 Kings ix. 7.\n\nSteiner: _Shall I leave their blood unpunished? I will not leave it\nunpunished._ Nowack deems this to be unlikely, and suggests, _I will\navenge their blood; I will not leave unpunished_ the shedders of it.\n\n[1262] Heb. construction is found also in Hosea xii. 5.\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF THE GRECIAN PERIOD\n\n (331\u2014\u2014 B.C.)\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXI\n\n _ISRAEL AND THE GREEKS_\n\n\nApart from the author of the tenth chapter of Genesis, who defines\nJavan or Greece as the father of Elishah and Tarshish, of Kittim or\nCyprus and Rodanim or Rhodes,[1263] the first Hebrew writer who\nmentions the Greeks is Ezekiel,[1264] _c._ 580 B.C. He describes them\nas engaged in commerce with the Ph\u0153nicians, who bought slaves from\nthem. Even while Ezekiel wrote in Babylonia, the Babylonians were in\ntouch with the Ionian Greeks through the Lydians.[1265] The latter were\noverthrown by Cyrus about 545, and by the beginning of the next century\nthe Persian lords of Israel were in close struggle with the Greeks for\nthe supremacy of the world, and had virtually been defeated so far as\nconcerned Europe, the west of Asia Minor, and the sovereignty of the\nMediterranean and Black Seas. In 460 Athens sent an expedition to Egypt\nto assist a revolt against Persia, and even before that Greek fleets\nhad scoured the Levant and Greek soldiers, though in the pay of Persia,\nhad trodden the soil of Syria. Still Joel, writing towards 400 B.C.,\nmentions Greece[1266] only as a market to which the Ph\u0153nicians carried\nJewish slaves; and in a prophecy which some take to be contemporary\nwith Joel, Isaiah lxvi., the coasts of Greece are among the most\ndistant of Gentile lands.[1267] In 401 the younger Cyrus brought to the\nEuphrates to fight against Artaxerxes Mnemon the ten thousand Greeks\nwhom, after the battle of Cunaxa, Xenophon led north to the Black Sea.\nFor nearly seventy years thereafter Athenian trade slowly spread\neastward, but nothing was yet done by Greece to advertise her to the\npeoples of Asia as a claimant for the world\u2019s throne. Then suddenly in\n334 Alexander of Macedon crossed the Hellespont, spent a year in the\nconquest of Asia Minor, defeated Darius at Issus in 332, took Damascus,\nTyre and Gaza, overran the Delta and founded Alexandria. In 331 he\nmarched back over Syria, crossed the Euphrates, overthrew the Persian\nEmpire on the field of Arbela, and for the next seven years till his\ndeath in 324 extended his conquests to the Oxus and the Indus. The\nstory, that on his second passage of Syria Alexander visited\nJerusalem,[1268] is probably false. But he must have encamped\nrepeatedly within forty miles of it, and he visited Samaria.[1269] It\nis impossible that he received no embassy from a people who had not\nknown political independence for centuries and must have been only too\nready to come to terms with the new lord of the world. Alexander left\nbehind him colonies of his veterans, both to the east and west of the\nJordan, and in his wake there poured into all the cities of the Syrian\nseaboard a considerable volume of Greek immigration.[1270] It is from\nthis time onward that we find in Greek writers the earliest mention of\nthe Jews by name. Theophrastus and Clearchus of Soli, disciples of\nAristotle, both speak of them; but while the former gives evidence of\nsome knowledge of their habits, the latter reports that in the\nperspective of his great master they had been so distant and vague as\nto be confounded with the Brahmins of India, a confusion which long\nsurvived among the Greeks.[1271]\n\nAlexander\u2019s death delivered his empire to the ambitions of his\ngenerals, of whom four contested for the mastery of Asia and\nEgypt\u2014Antigonus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Seleucus. Of these Ptolemy and\nSeleucus emerged victorious, the one in possession of Egypt, the other\nof Northern Syria and the rest of Asia. Palestine lay between them, and\nboth in the wars which led to the establishment of the two kingdoms and\nin those which for centuries followed, Palestine became the\nbattle-field of the Greeks.\n\nPtolemy gained Egypt within two years of Alexander\u2019s death, and from\nits definite and strongly entrenched territory he had by 320 conquered\nSyria and Cyprus. In 315 or 314 Syria was taken from him by Antigonus,\nwho also expelled Seleucus from Babylon. Seleucus fled to Egypt and\nstirred up Ptolemy to the reconquest of Syria. In 312 Ptolemy defeated\nDemetrius, the general of Antigonus, at Gaza, but the next year was\ndriven back into Egypt by Antigonus himself. Meanwhile Seleucus\nregained Babylon.[1272] In 311 the three made peace with each other,\nbut Antigonus retained Syria. In 306 they assumed the title of kings,\nand in the same year renewed their quarrel. After a naval battle\nAntigonus wrested Cyprus from Ptolemy, but in 301 he was defeated and\nslain by Seleucus and Lysimachus at the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia. His\nson Demetrius retained Cyprus and part of the Ph\u0153nician coast till 287,\nwhen he was forced to yield them to Seleucus, who had moved the centre\nof his power from Babylon to the new Antioch on the Orontes, with a\nseaport at Seleucia. Meanwhile in 301 Ptolemy had regained what the\nGreeks then knew as C\u0153le-Syria, that is all Syria to the south of\nLebanon except the Ph\u0153nician coast.[1273] Damascus belonged to\nSeleucus. But Ptolemy was not allowed to retain Palestine in peace, for\nin 297 Demetrius appears to have invaded it, and Seleucus, especially\nafter his marriage with Stratonike, the daughter of Demetrius, never\nwholly resigned his claims to it.[1274] Ptolemy, however, established a\nhold upon the land, which continued practically unbroken for a century,\nand yet during all that time had to be maintained by frequent wars, in\nthe course of which the land itself must have severely suffered\n(264\u2014248).\n\nTherefore, as in the days of their earliest prophets, the people of\nIsrael once more lay between two rival empires. And as Hosea and Isaiah\npictured them in the eighth century, the possible prey either of Egypt\nor Assyria, so now in these last years of the fourth they were tossed\nbetween Ptolemy and Antigonus, and in the opening years of the third\nwere equally wooed by Ptolemy and Seleucus. Upon this new alternative\nof tyranny the Jews appear to have bestowed the actual names of their\nold oppressors. Ptolemy was Egypt to them; Seleucus, with one of his\ncapitals at Babylon, was still Assyria, from which came in time the\nabbreviated Greek form of Syria.[1275] But, unlike the ancient empires,\nthese new rival lords were of one race. Whether the tyranny came from\nAsia or Africa, its quality was Greek; and in the sons of Javan the\nJews saw the successors of those world-powers of Egypt, Assyria and\nBabylonia, in which had been concentrated against themselves the whole\nforce of the heathen world. Our records of the times are fragmentary,\nbut though Alexander spared the Jews it appears that they had not long\nto wait before feeling the force of Greek arms. Josephus quotes[1276]\nfrom Agatharchides of Cnidos (180\u2014145 B.C.) to the effect that Ptolemy\nI. surprised Jerusalem on a Sabbath day and easily took it; and he adds\nthat at the same time he took a great many captives from the\nhill-country of Jud\u00e6a, from Jerusalem and from Samaria, and led them\ninto Egypt. Whether this was in 320 or 312 or 301[1277] we cannot tell.\nIt is possible that the Jews suffered in each of these Egyptian\ninvasions of Syria, as well as during the southward marches of\nDemetrius and Antigonus. The later policy, both of the Ptolemies, who\nwere their lords, and of the Seleucids, was for a long time exceedingly\nfriendly to Israel. Their sufferings from the Greeks were therefore\nprobably over by 280, although they cannot have remained unscathed by\nthe wars between 264 and 248.\n\nThe Greek invasion, however, was not like the Assyrian and Babylonian,\nof arms alone; but of a force of intellect and culture far surpassing\neven the influences which the Persians had impressed upon the religion\nand mental attitude of Israel. The ancient empires had transplanted the\nnations of Palestine to Assyria and Babylonia. The Greeks did not need\nto remove them to Greece; for they brought Greece to Palestine. \u201cThe\nOrient,\u201d says Wellhausen, \u201cbecame their America.\u201d They poured into\nSyria, infecting, exploiting, assimilating its peoples. With dismay the\nJews must have seen themselves surrounded by new Greek colonies, and\nstill more by the old Palestinian cities Hellenised in polity and\nreligion. The Greek translator of Isaiah ix. 12 renders Philistines by\nHellenes. Israel were compassed and penetrated by influences as subtle\nas the atmosphere: not as of old uprooted from their fatherland, but\nwith their fatherland itself infected and altered beyond all powers of\nresistance. The full alarm of this, however, was not felt for many\nyears to come. It was at first the policy both of the Seleucids and the\nPtolemies to flatter and foster the Jews. They encouraged them to feel\nthat their religion had its own place beside the forces of Greece, and\nwas worth interpreting to the world. Seleucus I. gave to Jews the\nrights of citizenship in Asia Minor and Northern Syria; and Ptolemy I.\natoned for his previous violence by granting them the same in\nAlexandria. In the matter of the consequent tribute Seleucus respected\ntheir religious scruples; and it was under Ptolemy Philadelphus\n(283\u2014247), if not at his instigation, that the Law was first translated\ninto Greek.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTo prophecy, before it finally expired, there was granted the\nopportunity to assert itself, upon at least the threshold of this new\nera of Israel\u2019s history.\n\nWe have from the first half-century of the era perhaps three or four,\nbut certainly two, prophetic pieces. By many critics Isaiah\nxxiv.\u2014xxvii. are assigned to the years immediately following\nAlexander\u2019s campaigns. Others assign Isaiah xix. 16-25 to the last\nyears of Ptolemy I.[1278] And of our Book of the Twelve Prophets, the\nchapters attached to the genuine prophecies of Zechariah, or chaps,\nix.\u2014xiv. of his book, most probably fall to be dated from the contests\nof Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine; while somewhere\nabout 300 is the most likely date for the Book of Jonah.\n\nIn \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. we see prophecy perhaps at its lowest ebb. The\nclash with the new foes produces a really terrible thirst for the blood\nof the heathen: there are schisms and intrigues within Israel which in\nour ignorance of her history during this time it is not possible for\nus to follow: the brighter gleams, which contrast so forcibly with the\nrest, may be more ancient oracles that the writer has incorporated with\nhis own stern and dark Apocalypse.\n\nIn the Book of Jonah, on the other hand, we find a spirit and a style\nin which prophecy may not unjustly be said to have given its highest\nutterance. And this alone suffices, in our uncertainty as to the exact\ndate of the book, to take it last of all our Twelve. For \u201cin this\nbook,\u201d as Cornill has finely said, \u201cthe prophecy of Israel quits the\nscene of battle as victor, and as victor in its severest struggle\u2014that\nagainst self.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1263] Gen. x. 2, 4. \u05d9\u05d5\u05df Javan, is \u0399\u03b1\u03dd\u03c9\u03bd, or \u0399\u03b1\u03c9\u03bd, the older form of\nthe name of the Ionians, the first of the Greek race with whom Eastern\npeoples came into contact. They are perhaps named on the Tell-el-Amarna\ntablets as \u201cYivana,\u201d serving \u201cin the country of Tyre\u201d (_c._ 1400 B.C.);\nand on an inscription of Sargon (_c._ 709) Cyprus is called Y\u00e2vanu.\n\n[1264] xxvii. 13.\n\n[1265] _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible), 108 f.\n\n[1266] iii. 6 (Eng.; iv. 6 Heb.).\n\n[1267] The sense of distance between the two peoples was mutual.\nWriting in the middle of the fifth century B.C., Herodotus has heard of\nthe Jews only as a people that practise circumcision and were defeated\nby Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo (II. 104, 159; on the latter passage see\n_Hist. Geog._, p. 405 n.). He does not even know them by name. The\nfragment of Ch\u0153rilos of Samos, from the end of the fifth century, which\nJosephus cites (_Contra Apionem_, I. 22) as a reference to the Jews,\nis probably of a people in Asia Minor. Even in the last half of the\nfourth century and before Alexander\u2019s campaigns, Aristotle knows of the\nDead Sea only by a vague report (_Meteor._, II. iii. 39). His pupil\nTheophrastus (_d._ 287) names and describes the Jews (Porphyr. _de\nAbstinentia_, II. 26; Eusebius, _Prepar. Evang._, IX. 2: cf. Josephus,\n_C. Apion._, I. 22); and another pupil, Clearchus of Soli, records the\nmention by Aristotle of a travelled Jew of C\u0153le-Syria, but \u201cGreek in\nsoul as in tongue,\u201d whom the great philosopher had met, and learned\nfrom him that the Jews were descended from the philosophers of India\n(quoted by Josephus, _C. Apion._, I. 22).\n\n[1268] Jos., XI. _Antt._ iv. 5.\n\n[1269] _Hist. Geog._, p. 347.\n\n[1270] _Hist. Geog._, pp. 593 f.\n\n[1271] See above, p. 440, n. 1267.\n\n[1272] Hence the Seleucid era dates from 312.\n\n[1273] _Hist. Geog._, 538.\n\n[1274] Cf. Ewald, _Hist._ (Eng. Ed.), V. 226 f.\n\n[1275] Asshur or Assyria fell in 607 (as we have seen), but her name\nwas transferred to her successor Babylon (2 Kings xxiii. 29; Jer. ii.\n18; Lam. v. 6), and even to Babylon\u2019s successor Persia (Ezra vi. 22).\nWhen Seleucus secured what was virtually the old Assyrian Empire with\nlarge extensions to Phrygia on the west and the Punjaub on the east,\nthe name would naturally be continued to his dominion, especially as\nhis first capital was Babylon, from his capture of which in 312 the\nSeleucid era took its start. There is actual record of this. Brugsch\n(_Gesch. Aeg._, p. 218) states that in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of\nthe Ptolem\u00e6an period the kingdom of the Seleucids is called Asharu (cf.\nStade, _Z.A.T.W._, 1882, p. 292, and Cheyne, _Book of Psalms_, p. 253,\nand _Introd. to Book of Isaiah_, p. 107, n. 3). As the Seleucid kingdom\nshrank to this side of the Euphrates, it drew the name Assyria with it.\nBut in Greek mouths this had long ago (cf. Herod.) been shortened to\nSyria: Herodotus also appears to have applied it only to the west of\nthe Euphrates. Cf. _Hist. Geog._, pp. 3 f.\n\n[1276] XII. _Antt._ i.: cf. _Con. Apion._, I. 22.\n\n[1277] See above, p. 442. Eusebius, _Chron. Arm._, II. 225, assigns it\nto 320.\n\n[1278] Cheyne, _Introd. to Book of Isaiah_, p. 105.\n\n\n\n\n \u201c_ZECHARIAH_\u201d\n\n (_IX.\u2014XIV._)\n\n\n\n\n_Lo, thy King cometh to thee, vindicated and victorious, meek and\nriding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass._\n\n_Up, Sword, against My Shepherd!... Smite the Shepherd, that the sheep\nmay be scattered!_\n\n_And I will pour upon the house of David and upon all the inhabitants\nof Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication, and they shall\nlook to Him whom they have pierced; and they shall lament for Him, as\nwith lamentation for an only son, and bitterly grieve for Him, as with\ngrief for a first-born._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXII\n\n _CHAPTERS IX.\u2014XIV. OF \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d_\n\n\nWe saw that the first eight chapters of the Book of Zechariah were,\nwith the exception of a few verses, from the prophet himself. No one\nhas ever doubted this. No one could doubt it: they are obviously\nfrom the years of the building of the Temple, 520\u2014516 B.C. They hang\ntogether with a consistency exhibited by few other groups of chapters\nin the Old Testament.\n\nBut when we pass into chap. ix. we find ourselves in circumstances and\nan atmosphere altogether different. Israel is upon a new situation of\nhistory, and the words addressed to her breathe another spirit. There\nis not the faintest allusion to the building of the Temple\u2014the subject\nfrom which all the first eight chapters depend. There is not a single\ncertain reflection of the Persian period, under the shadow of which the\nfirst eight chapters were all evidently written. We have names of\nheathen powers mentioned, which not only do not occur in the first\neight chapters, but of which it is not possible to think that they had\nany interest whatever for Israel between 520 and 516: Damascus,\nHadrach, Hamath, Assyria, Egypt and Greece. The peace, and the love of\npeace, in which Zechariah wrote, has disappeared.[1279] Nearly\neverything breathes of war actual or imminent. The heathen are spoken\nof with a ferocity which finds few parallels in the Old Testament.\nThere is a revelling in their blood, of which the student of the\nauthentic prophecies of Zechariah will at once perceive that gentle\nlover of peace could not have been capable. And one passage figures the\nimminence of a thorough judgment upon Jerusalem, very different from\nZechariah\u2019s outlook upon his people\u2019s future from the eve of the\ncompletion of the Temple. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of\nthe earliest efforts of Old Testament criticism should have been to\nprove another author than Zechariah for chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. of the book\ncalled by his name.\n\nThe very first attempt of this kind was made so far back as 1632 by the\nCambridge theologian Joseph Mede,[1280] who was moved thereto by the\ndesire to vindicate the correctness of St. Matthew\u2019s ascription[1281]\nof \u201cZech.\u201d xi. 13 to the prophet Jeremiah. Mede\u2019s effort was developed\nby other English exegetes. Hammond assigned chaps. x.\u2014xii., Bishop\nKidder[1282] and William Whiston, the translator of Josephus, chaps.\nix.\u2014xiv., to Jeremiah. Archbishop Newcome[1283] divided them, and\nsought to prove that while chaps. ix.\u2014xi. must have been written before\n721, or a century earlier than Jeremiah, because of the heathen powers\nthey name, and the divisions between Judah and Israel, chaps. xii.\u2014xiv.\nreflect the imminence of the Fall of Jerusalem. In 1784 Fl\u00fcgge[1284]\noffered independent proof that chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. were by Jeremiah; and in\n1814 Bertholdt[1285] suggested that chaps. ix.\u2014xi. might be by\nZechariah the contemporary of Isaiah,[1286] and on that account\nattached to the prophecies of his younger namesake. These opinions gave\nthe trend to the main volume of criticism, which, till fifteen years\nago, deemed \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. to be pre-exilic. So Hitzig, who at first\ntook the whole to be from one hand, but afterwards placed xii.\u2014xiv. by\na different author under Manasseh. So Ewald, Bleek, Kuenen (at first),\nSamuel Davidson, Schrader, Duhm (in 1875), and more recently K\u00f6nig and\nOrelli, who assign chaps. ix.\u2014xi. to the reign of Ahaz, but xii.\u2014xiv.\nto the eve of the Fall of Jerusalem, or even a little later.\n\nSome critics, however, remained unmoved by the evidence offered for a\npre-exilic date. They pointed out in particular that the geographical\nreferences were equally suitable to the centuries after the Exile.\nDamascus, Hadrach and Hamath,[1287] though politically obsolete by 720,\nentered history again with the campaigns of Alexander the Great in\n332\u2014331, and the establishment of the Seleucid kingdom in Northern\nSyria.[1288] Egypt and Assyria[1289] were names used after the Exile\nfor the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and for those powers which still\nthreatened Israel from the north, or Assyrian quarter. Judah and Joseph\nor Ephraim[1290] were names still used after the Exile to express the\nwhole of God\u2019s Israel; and in chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. they are presented, not\ndivided as before 721, but united. None of the chapters give a hint of\nany king in Jerusalem; and all of them, while representing the great\nExile of Judah as already begun, show a certain dependence in style and\neven in language upon Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi. Moreover\nthe language is post-exilic, sprinkled with Aramaisms and with other\nwords and phrases used only, or mainly, by Hebrew writers from Jeremiah\nonwards.\n\nBut though many critics judged these grounds to be sufficient to\nprove the post-exilic origin of \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv., they differed as\nto the author and exact date of these chapters. Conservatives like\nHengstenberg,[1291] Delitzsch, Keil, K\u00f6hler and Pusey used the evidence\nto prove the authorship of Zechariah himself after 516, and interpreted\nthe references to the Greek period as pure prediction. Pusey says[1292]\nthat chaps. ix.\u2014xi. extend from the completion of the Temple and its\ndeliverance during the invasion of Alexander, and from the victories of\nthe Maccabees, to the rejection of the true shepherd and the curse upon\nthe false; and chaps. xi.\u2014xii. \u201cfrom a future repentance for the death\nof Christ to the final conversion of the Jews and Gentiles.\u201d[1293]\n\nBut on the same grounds Eichhorn[1294] saw in the chapters not a\nprediction but a reflection of the Greek period. He assigned chaps. ix.\nand x. to an author in the time of Alexander the Great; xi.\u2014xiii. 6 he\nplaced a little later, and brought down xiii. 7\u2014xiv. to the Maccabean\nperiod. B\u00f6ttcher[1295] placed the whole in the wars of Ptolemy and\nSeleucus after Alexander\u2019s death; and Vatke, who had at first selected\na date in the reign of Artaxerxes Longhand, 464\u2014425, finally decided\nfor the Maccabean period, 170 ff.[1296]\n\nIn recent times the most thorough examination of the chapters has\nbeen that by Stade,[1297] and the conclusion he comes to is that\nchaps. ix.\u2014xiv. are all from one author, who must have written during\nthe early wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids about 280 B.C.,\nbut employed, especially in chaps. ix., x., an earlier prophecy. A\ncriticism and modification of Stade\u2019s theory is given by Kuenen.\nHe allows that the present form of chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. must be of\npost-exilic origin: this is obvious from the mention of the Greeks as\na world-power; the description of a siege of Jerusalem by _all_ the\nheathen; the way in which (chaps. ix. 11 f., but especially x. 6-9)\nthe captivity is presupposed, if not of all Israel, yet of Ephraim;\nthe fact that the House of David are not represented as governing;\nand the thoroughly priestly character of all the chapters. But Kuenen\nholds that an ancient prophecy of the eighth century underlies\nchaps. ix.\u2014xi., xiii. 7-9, in which several actual phrases of it\nsurvive;[1298] and that in their present form xii.\u2014xiv. are older than\nix.\u2014xi., and probably by a contemporary of Joel, about 400 B.C.\n\nIn the main Cheyne,[1299] Cornill,[1300] Wildeboer[1301] and\nStaerk[1302] adhere to Stade\u2019s conclusions. Cheyne proves the unity of\nthe six chapters and their date _before_ the Maccabean period. Staerk\nbrings down xi. 4-17 and xiii. 7-9 to 171 B.C. Wellhausen argues for\nthe unity, and assigns it to the Maccabean times. Driver judges\nix.\u2014xi., with its natural continuation xiii. 7-9, as not earlier than\n333; and the rest of xii.\u2014xiv. as certainly post-exilic, and probably\nfrom 432\u2014300. Rubinkam[1303] places ix. 1-10 in Alexander\u2019s time, the\nrest in that of the Maccabees, but Zeydner[1304] all of it to the\nlatter. Kirkpatrick,[1305] after showing the post-exilic character of\nall the chapters, favours assigning ix.\u2014xi. to a different author from\nxii.\u2014xiv. Asserting that to the question of the exact date it is\nimpossible to give a definite answer, he thinks that the whole may be\nwith considerable probability assigned to the first sixty or seventy\nyears of the Exile, and is therefore in its proper place between\nZechariah and \u201cMalachi.\u201d The reference to the sons of Javan he takes to\nbe a gloss, probably added in Maccabean times.[1306]\n\nIt will be seen from this catalogue of conclusions that the prevailing\ntrend of recent criticism has been to assign \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. to\npost-exilic times, and to a different author from chaps. i.\u2014viii.; and\nthat while a few critics maintain a date soon after the Return, the\nbulk are divided between the years following Alexander\u2019s campaigns and\nthe time of the Maccabean struggles.[1307]\n\nThere are, in fact, in recent years only two attempts to support the\nconservative position of Pusey and Hengstenberg that the whole book is\na genuine work of Zechariah the son of Iddo. One of these is by C. H.\nH. Wright in his Bampton Lectures. The other is by George L. Robinson,\nnow Professor at Toronto, in a reprint (1896) from the _American\nJournal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, which offers a valuable\nhistory of the discussion of the whole question from the days of Mede,\nwith a careful argument of all the evidence on both sides. The very\noriginal conclusion is reached that the chapters reflect the history of\nthe years 518\u2014516 B.C.\n\nIn discussing the question, for which our treatment of other prophets\nhas left us too little space, we need not open that part of it which\nlies between a pre-exilic and a post-exilic date. Recent criticism of\nall schools and at both extremes has tended to establish the latter\nupon reasons which we have already stated,[1308] and for further\ndetails of which the student may be referred to Stade\u2019s and Eckardt\u2019s\ninvestigations in the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr A. T. Wissenschaft_ and to\nKirkpatrick\u2019s impartial summary. There remain the questions of the\nunity of chaps. ix.\u2014xiv.; their exact date or dates after the Exile,\nand as a consequence of this their relation to the authentic prophecies\nof Zechariah in chaps. i.\u2014viii.\n\nOn the question of unity we take first chaps. ix.\u2014xi., to which must be\nadded (as by most critics since Ewald) xiii. 7-9, which has got out of\nits place as the natural continuation and conclusion of chap. xi.\n\nChap. ix. 1-8 predicts the overthrow of heathen neighbours of Israel,\ntheir possession by Jehovah and His safeguard of Jerusalem. Vv. 9-12\nfollow with a prediction of the Messianic King as the Prince of Peace;\nbut then come vv. 13-17, with no mention of the King, but Jehovah\nappears alone as the hero of His people against the Greeks, and there\nis indeed sufficiency of war and blood. Chap. x. makes a new start: the\npeople are warned to seek their blessings from Jehovah, and not from\nTeraphim and diviners, whom their false shepherds follow. Jehovah,\nvisiting His flock, shall punish these, give proper rulers, make the\npeople strong and gather in their exiles to fill Gilead and Lebanon.\nChap. xi. opens with a burst of war on Lebanon and Bashan and the\noverthrow of the heathen (vv. 1-3), and follows with an allegory, in\nwhich the prophet first takes charge from Jehovah of the people as\ntheir shepherd, but is contemptuously treated by them (4-14), and then\ntaking the guise of an evil shepherd represents what they must suffer\nfrom their next ruler (15-17). This tyrant, however, shall receive\npunishment, two-thirds of the nation shall be scattered, but the rest,\nfurther purified, shall be God\u2019s own people (xiii. 7-9).\n\nIn the course of this prophesying there is no conclusive proof of a\ndouble authorship. The only passage which offers strong evidence for\nthis is chap. ix. The verses predicting the peaceful coming of Messiah\n(9-12) do not accord in spirit with those which follow predicting the\nappearance of Jehovah with war and great shedding of blood. Nor is the\ndifference altogether explained, as Stade thinks, by the similar order\nof events in chap. x., where Judah and Joseph are first represented as\nsaved and brought back in ver. 6, and then we have the process of their\nredemption and return described in vv. 7 ff. Why did the same writer\ngive statements of such very different temper as chap. ix. 9-12 and\n13-17? Or, if these be from different hands, why were they ever put\ntogether? Otherwise there is no reason for breaking up chaps. ix.\u2014xi.,\nxiii. 7-9. Rubinkam, who separates ix. 1-10 by a hundred and fifty\nyears from the rest; Bleek, who divides ix. from x.; and Staerk, who\nseparates ix.\u2014xi. 3 from the rest, have been answered by Robinson and\nothers.[1309] On the ground of language, grammar and syntax, Eckardt\nhas fully proved that ix.\u2014xi. are from the same author of a late date,\nwho, however, may have occasionally followed earlier models and even\nintroduced their very phrases.[1310]\n\nMore supporters have been found for a division of authorship between\nchaps. ix.\u2014xi., xiii. 7-9, and chaps. xii.\u2014xiv. (less xiii. 7-9). Chap.\nxii. opens with a title of its own. A strange element is introduced\ninto the historical relation. Jerusalem is assaulted not by the heathen\nonly, but by Judah, who, however, turns on finding that Jehovah fights\nfor Jerusalem, and is saved by Jehovah before Jerusalem in order that\nthe latter may not boast over it (xii. 1-9). A spirit of grace and\nsupplication is poured upon the guilty city, a fountain opened for\nuncleanness, idols abolished, and the prophets, who are put on a level\nwith them, abolished too, where they do not disown their profession\n(xii. 10\u2014xiii. 6). Another assault of the heathen on Jerusalem is\ndescribed, half of the people being taken captive. Jehovah appears, and\nby a great earthquake saves the rest. The land is transformed. And then\nthe prophet goes back to the defeat of the heathen assault on the city,\nin which Judah is again described as taking part; and the surviving\nheathen are converted, or, if they refuse to be, punished by the\nwithholding of rain. Jerusalem is holy to the Lord (xiv.). In all this\nthere is more that differs from chaps. ix.\u2014xi., xiii. 7-9, than the\nstrange opposition of Judah and Jerusalem. Ephraim, or Joseph, is not\nmentioned, nor any return of exiles, nor punishment of the shepherds,\nnor coming of the Messiah,[1311] the latter\u2019s place being taken by\nJehovah. But in answer to this we may remember that the Messiah, after\nbeing described in ix. 9-12, is immediately lost behind the warlike\ncoming of Jehovah. Both sections speak of idolatry, and of the heathen,\ntheir punishment and conversion, and do so in the same apocalyptic\nstyle. Nor does the language of the two differ in any decisive fashion.\nOn the contrary, as Eckardt[1312] and Kuiper have shown, the language\nis on the whole an argument for unity of authorship.[1313] There is,\nthen, nothing conclusive against the position, which Stade so clearly\nlaid down and strongly fortified, that chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. are from the\nsame hand, although, as he admits, this cannot be proved with absolute\ncertainty. So also Cheyne: \u201cWith perhaps one or two exceptions, chaps.\nix.\u2014xi. and xii.\u2014xiv. are so closely welded together that even analysis\nis impossible.\u201d[1314]\n\nThe next questions we have to decide are whether chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. offer\nany evidence of being by Zechariah, the author of chaps. i.\u2014viii., and\nif not to what other post-exilic date they may be assigned.\n\nIt must be admitted that in language and in style the two parts of the\nBook of Zechariah have features in common. But that these have been\nexaggerated by defenders of the unity there can be no doubt. We cannot\ninfer anything from the fact[1315] that both parts contain specimens of\nclumsy diction, of the repetition of the same word, of phrases (not the\nsame phrases) unused by other writers;[1316] or that each is lavish in\nvocatives; or that each is variable in his spelling. Resemblances of\nthat kind they share with other books: some of them are due to the fact\nthat both sections are post-exilic. On the other hand, as Eckardt has\nclearly shown, there exists a still greater number of differences\nbetween the two sections, both in language and in style.[1317] Not only\ndo characteristic words occur in each which are not found in the other,\nnot only do chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. contain many more Aramaisms than chaps.\ni.\u2014viii., and therefore symptoms of a later date; but both parts use\nthe same words with more or less different meanings, and apply\ndifferent terms to the same objects. There are also differences of\ngrammar, of favourite formulas, and of other features of the\nphraseology, which, if there be any need, complete the proof of a\ndistinction of dialect so great as to require to account for it\ndistinction of authorship.\n\nThe same impression is sustained by the contrast of the historical\ncircumstances reflected in each of the two sections. Zech. i.\u2014viii.\nwere written during the building of the Temple. There is no echo of the\nlatter in \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. Zech. i.\u2014viii. picture the whole earth as at\npeace, which was true at least of all Syria: they portend no danger to\nJerusalem from the heathen, but describe her peace and fruitful\nexpansion in terms most suitable to the circumstances imposed upon her\nby the solid and clement policy of the earlier Persian kings. This is\nall changed in \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. The nations are restless; a siege of\nJerusalem is imminent, and her salvation is to be assured only by much\nwar and a terrible shedding of blood. We know exactly how Israel fared\nand felt in the early sections of the Persian period: her interests in\nthe politics of the world, her feelings towards her governors and her\nwhole attitude to the heathen were not at that time those which are\nreflected in \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv.\n\nNor is there any such resemblance between the religious principles\nof the two sections of the Book of Zechariah as could prove identity\nof origin. That both are spiritual, or that they have a similar\nexpectation of the ultimate position of Israel in the history of\nthe world, proves only that both were late offshoots from the same\nreligious development, and worked upon the same ancient models. Within\nthese outlines, there are not a few divergences. Zech. i.\u2014viii. were\nwritten before Ezra and Nehemiah had imposed the Levitical legislation\nupon Israel; but Eckardt has shown the dependence on the latter of\n\u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv.\n\nWe may, therefore, adhere to Canon Driver\u2019s assertion, that Zechariah\nin chaps. i.\u2014viii. \u201cuses a different phraseology, evinces different\ninterests and moves in a different circle of ideas from those which\nprevail in chaps. ix.\u2014xiv.\u201d[1318] Criticism has indeed been justified\nin separating, by the vast and growing majority of its opinions, the\ntwo sections from each other. This was one of the earliest results\nwhich modern criticism achieved, and the latest researches have but\nestablished it on a firmer basis.\n\nIf, then, chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. be not Zechariah\u2019s, to what date may we\nassign them? We have already seen that they bear evidence of being\nupon the whole later than Zechariah, though they appear to contain\nfragments from an earlier period. Perhaps this is all we can with\ncertainty affirm. Yet something more definite is at least probable.\nThe mention of the Greeks, not as Joel mentions them about 400, the\nmost distant nation to which Jewish slaves could be carried, but as\nthe chief of the heathen powers, and a foe with whom the Jews are in\ntouch and must soon cross swords,[1319] appears to imply that the\nSyrian campaign of Alexander is happening or has happened, or even\nthat the Greek kingdoms of Syria and Egypt are already contending for\nthe possession of Palestine. With this agrees the mention of Damascus,\nHadrach and Hamath, the localities where the Seleucids had their chief\nseats.[1320] In that case Asshur would signify the Seleucids and Egypt\nthe Ptolemies:[1321] it is these, and not Greece itself, from whom the\nJewish exiles have still to be redeemed. All this makes probable the\ndate which Stade has proposed for the chapters, between 300 and 280\nB.C. To bring them further down, to the time of the Maccabees, as some\nhave tried to do, would not be impossible so far as the historical\nallusions are concerned; but had they been of so late a date as that,\nviz. 170 or 160, we may assert that they could not have found a place\nin the prophetic canon, which was closed by 200, but must have fallen\nalong with Daniel into the Hagiographa.\n\nThe appearance of these prophecies at the close of the Book of\nZechariah has been explained, not quite satisfactorily, as follows.\nWith the Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d they formed originally three anonymous\npieces,[1322] which because of their anonymity were set at the end of\nthe Book of the Twelve. The first of them begins with the very peculiar\nconstruction \u201cMassa\u2019 D\u0115bar Jehovah,\u201d _oracle of the word of Jehovah_,\nwhich, though partly belonging to the text, the editor read as a title,\nand attached as a title to each of the others. It occurs nowhere else.\nThe Book of \u201cMalachi\u201d was too distinct in character to be attached to\nanother book, and soon came to have the supposed name of its author\nadded to its title.[1323] But the other two pieces fell, like all\nanonymous works, to the nearest writing with an author\u2019s name. Perhaps\nthe attachment was hastened by the desire to make the round number of\nTwelve Prophets.\n\n\nADDENDA.\n\n Whiston\u2019s work (p. 450) is _An Essay towards restoring the True Text\n of the O. T. and for vindicating the Citations made thence in the\n N. T._, 1722, pp. 93 ff. (not seen). Besides those mentioned on p.\n 452 (see n. 1293) as supporting the unity of Zechariah there ought\n to be named De Wette, Umbreit, von Hoffmann, Ebrard, etc. Kuiper\u2019s\n work (p. 458) is _Zacharia_ 9-14, Utrecht, 1894 (not seen). Nowack\u2019s\n conclusions are: ix.\u2014xi. 3 date from the Greek period (we cannot\n date them more exactly, unless ix. 8 refers to Ptolemy\u2019s capture of\n Jerusalem in 320); xi., xiii. 7-9, are post-exilic; xii.\u2014xiii. 6 long\n after Exile; xiv. long after Exile, later than \u201cMalachi.\u201d\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1279] Except in the passage ix. 10-12, which seems strangely out of\nplace in the rest of ix.\u2014xiv.\n\n[1280] _Works_, 4th ed. 1677, pp. 786 ff. (1632), 834. Mede died 1638.\n\n[1281] Matt. xxvii. 9.\n\n[1282] _Demonstration of the Messias_, 1700.\n\n[1283] _An Attempt towards an Improved Version of the Twelve Minor\nProphets_, 1785 (not seen). See also Wright on Archbishop Seeker.\n\n[1284] _Die Weissagungen, welche bei den Schriften des Proph. Sacharja\nbeygebogen sind, \u00fcbersetzt_, etc., Hamburg (not seen).\n\n[1285] _Einleitung in A. u. N. T._ (not seen).\n\n[1286] Isa. viii. 2. See above, p. 265.\n\n[1287] ix. 1.\n\n[1288] See above, Chap. XXXI.\n\n[1289] x. 10.\n\n[1290] ix. 10, 13, etc.\n\n[1291] _Dan. u. Sacharja._\n\n[1292] Page 503.\n\n[1293] See Addenda, p. 462.\n\n[1294] _Einl._ in the beginning of the century.\n\n[1295] _Neue Exeg. krit. Aehrenlese z. A. T._, 1864.\n\n[1296] _Einl._, 1882, p. 709.\n\n[1297] _Z.A.T.W._, 1881, 1882. See further proof of the late character\nof language and style, and of the unity, by Eckardt, _Z.A.T.W._, 1893,\npp. 76 ff.\n\n[1298] \u00a7 81, n. 3, 10. See p. 457, end of note 1310.\n\n[1299] _Jewish Quart. Review_, 1889.\n\n[1300] _Einl._\u2074\n\n[1301] _A. T. Litt._\n\n[1302] _Untersuchung \u00fcber die Komposition u. Abfassungszeit von Zach._\n9-14, etc. Halle, 1891 (not seen).\n\n[1303] 1892: quoted by Wildeboer.\n\n[1304] 1893: quoted by Wildeboer.\n\n[1305] _Doctrine of the Prophets_, 438 ff., in which the English reader\nwill find a singularly lucid and fair treatment of the question. See,\ntoo, Wright.\n\n[1306] Page 472, Note A.\n\n[1307] Kautzsch\u2014the Greek period.\n\n[1308] Above, pp. 451 f.\n\n[1309] Robinson, pp. 76 ff.\n\n[1310] _Z.A.T.W._, 1893, 76 ff. See also the summaries of linguistic\nevidence given by Robinson. Kuenen finds in ix.\u2014xi. the following\npre-exilic elements: ix. 1-5, 8-10, 13_a_ (?); x. 1 f., 10 f.; xi. 4-14\nor 17.\n\n[1311] Kuenen.\n\n[1312] See above, p. 453, n. 1297.\n\n[1313] See also Robinson.\n\n[1314] _Jewish Quarterly Review_, 1889, p. 81.\n\n[1315] As Robinson, _e.g._, does.\n\n[1316] E.g. _holy land_, ii. 16, and _Mount of Olives_, xiv. 4.\n\n[1317] _Op. cit._, 103-109: cf. Driver, _Introd._\u2076, 354.\n\n[1318] _Introd._\u2076, p. 354.\n\n[1319] ix. 13.\n\n[1320] ix. 1 f.\n\n[1321] x. 11. See above, p. 451.\n\n[1322] See above, pp. 331 ff., for proof of the original anonymity of\nthe Book of \u201cMalachi.\u201d\n\n[1323] Above, p. 331.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXIII\n\n _THE CONTENTS OF \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d IX.\u2014XIV._\n\n\nFrom the number of conflicting opinions which prevail upon the subject,\nwe have seen how impossible it is to decide upon a scheme of division\nfor \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. These chapters consist of a number of separate\noracles, which their language and general conceptions lead us on the\nwhole to believe were put together by one hand, and which, with the\npossible exception of some older fragments, reflect the troubled times\nin Palestine that followed on the invasion of Alexander the Great. But\nthough the most of them are probably due to one date and possibly come\nfrom the same author, these oracles do not always exhibit a connection,\nand indeed sometimes show no relevance to each other. It will therefore\nbe simplest to take them piece by piece, and, before giving the\ntranslation of each, to explain the difficulties in it and indicate the\nruling ideas.\n\n\n 1. THE COMING OF THE GREEKS (ix. 1-8).\n\nThis passage runs exactly in the style of the early prophets. It\nfigures the progress of war from the north of Syria southwards by\nthe valley of the Orontes to Damascus, and then along the coasts of\nPh\u0153nicia and the Philistines. All these shall be devastated, but\nJehovah will camp about His own House and it shall be inviolate.\nThis is exactly how Amos or Isaiah might have pictured an Assyrian\ncampaign, or Zephaniah a Scythian. It is not surprising, therefore,\nthat even some of those who take the bulk of \u201cZech.\u201d ix.\u2014xiv. as\npost-exilic should regard ix. 1-5 as earlier even than Amos, with\npost-exilic additions only in vv. 6-8.[1324] This is possible. Vv. 6-8\nare certainly post-exilic, because of their mention of the half-breeds,\nand their intimation that Jehovah will take unclean food out of the\nmouth of the heathen; but the allusions in vv. 1-5 suit an early date.\nThey equally suit, however, a date in the Greek period. The progress of\nwar from the Orontes valley by Damascus and thence down the coast of\nPalestine follows the line of Alexander\u2019s campaign in 332, which must\nalso have been the line of Demetrius in 315 and of Antigonus in 311.\nThe evidence of language is mostly in favour of a late date.[1325] If\nPtolemy I. took Jerusalem in 320,[1326] then the promise, no assailant\nshall return (ver. 8), is probably later than that.\n\nIn face then of Alexander\u2019s invasion of Palestine, or of another\ncampaign on the same line, this oracle repeats the ancient confidence\nof Isaiah. God rules: His providence is awake alike for the heathen\nand for Israel. _Jehovah hath an eye for mankind, and all the tribes\nof Israel._[1327] The heathen shall be destroyed, but Jerusalem rest\nsecure; and the remnant of the heathen be converted, according to the\nLevitical notion, by having unclean foods taken out of their mouths.\n\n\n _Oracle._\n\n_The Word of Jehovah is on the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is its\ngoal[1328]\u2014for Jehovah hath an eye _upon_ the heathen,[1329] and all\nthe tribes of Israel\u2014and on[1330] Hamath, _which_ borders upon it, Tyre\nand Sidon, for they were very wise.[1331] And Tyre built her a\nfortress, and heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the\nstreets. Lo, the Lord will dispossess her, and strike her rampart[1332]\ninto the sea, and she shall be consumed in fire. Ash\u1e33lon shall see and\nshall fear, and Gaza writhe in anguish, and Ekron, for her\nconfidence[1333] is abashed, and the king shall perish from Gaza and\nAsh\u1e33lon lie uninhabited. Half-breeds[1334] shall dwell in Ashdod, and I\nwill cut down the pride of the Philistines. And I will take their blood\nfrom their mouth and their abominations from between their teeth,[1335]\nand even they shall be left for our God, and shall become like a clan\nin Judah, and Ekron shall be as the Jebusite. And I shall encamp for a\nguard[1336] to My House, so that none pass by or return, and no\nassailant again pass upon them, for now do I regard it with Mine eyes._\n\n\n 2. THE PRINCE OF PEACE (ix. 9-12).\n\nThis beautiful picture, applied by the Evangelist with such fitness\nto our Lord upon His entry to Jerusalem, must also be of post-exilic\ndate. It contrasts with the warlike portraits of the Messiah drawn in\npre-exilic times, for it clothes Him with humility and with peace. The\ncoming King of Israel has the attributes already imputed to the Servant\nof Jehovah by the prophet of the Babylonian captivity. The next verses\nalso imply the Exile as already a fact. On the whole, too, the language\nis of a late rather than of an early date.[1337] Nothing in the passage\nbetrays the exact point of its origin after the Exile.\n\nThe epithets applied to the Messiah are of very great interest. He does\nnot bring victory or salvation, but is the passive recipient of\nit.[1338] This determines the meaning of the preceding adjective,\n_righteous_, which has not the moral sense of _justice_, but rather\nthat of _vindication_, in which _righteousness_ and _righteous_ are so\nfrequently used in Isa. xl.\u2014lv.[1339] He is _lowly_, like the Servant\nof Jehovah; and comes riding not the horse, an animal for war, because\nthe next verse says that horses and chariots are to be removed from\nIsrael,[1340] but the ass, the animal not of lowliness, as some have\ninterpreted, but of peace. To this day in the East asses are used, as\nthey are represented in the Song of Deborah, by great officials, but\nonly when these are upon civil, and not upon military, duty.\n\nIt is possible that this oracle closes with ver. 10, and that we should\ntake vv. 11 and 12, on the deliverance from exile, with the next.\n\n_Rejoice mightily, daughter of Zion! shout aloud, daughter of\nJerusalem! Lo, thy King cometh to thee, vindicated and victorious,[1341]\nmeek and riding on an ass,[1342] and on a colt the she-ass\u2019 foal.[1343]\nAnd I[1344] will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from\nJerusalem, and the war-bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace\nto the nations, and His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the\nriver even to the ends of the earth. Thou, too,\u2014by thy covenant-blood,\n[1345] I have set free thy prisoners from the pit.[1346] Return to the\nfortress, ye prisoners of hope; even to-day do I proclaim: Double will\nI return to thee._[1347]\n\n\n 3. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE GREEKS (ix. 13-17).\n\nThe next oracle seems singularly out of keeping with the spirit of the\nlast, which declared the arrival of the Messianic peace, while this\nrepresents Jehovah as using Israel for His weapons in the slaughter of\nthe Greeks and heathens, in whose blood they shall revel. But Stade has\npointed out how often in chaps. ix.\u2014xiv. a result is first stated and\nthen the oracle goes on to describe the process by which it is\nachieved. Accordingly we have no ground for affirming ix. 13-17 to be\nby another hand than ix. 9-12. The apocalyptic character of the means\nby which the heathen are to be overthrown, and the exultation displayed\nin their slaughter, as in a great sacrifice (ver. 15), betray Israel in\na state of absolute political weakness, and therefore suit a date after\nAlexander\u2019s campaigns, which is also made sure by the reference to the\n_sons of Javan_, as if Israel were now in immediate contact with them.\nKirkpatrick\u2019s note should be read, in which he seeks to prove _the sons\nof Javan_ a late gloss;[1348] but his reasons do not appear conclusive.\nThe language bears several traces of lateness.[1349]\n\n_For I have drawn Judah for My bow, I have charged_ it _with Ephraim;\nand I will urge thy sons, O Zion, against the sons of[1350] Javan, and\nmake thee like the sword of a hero. Then will Jehovah appear above\nthem, and His shaft shall go forth like lightning; and the Lord Jehovah\nshall blow a blast on the trumpet, and travel in the storms of the\nsouth.[1351] Jehovah will protect them, and they shall devour\n_(?)_[1352] and trample ...;[1353] and they shall drink their\nblood[1354] like wine, and be drenched with it, like a bowl and like\nthe corners of the altar. And Jehovah their God will give them victory\nin that day....[1355] How good it[1356] is, and how beautiful! Corn\nshall make the young men flourish and new wine the maidens._\n\n\n 4. AGAINST THE TERAPHIM AND SORCERERS (x. 1, 2).\n\nThis little piece is connected with the previous one only through the\nlatter\u2019s conclusion upon the fertility of the land, while this opens\nwith rain, the requisite of fertility. It is connected with the piece\nthat follows only by its mention of the shepherdless state of the\npeople, the piece that follows being against the false shepherds. These\nconnections are extremely slight. Perhaps the piece is an independent\none. The subject of it gives no clue to the date. Sorcerers are\ncondemned both by the earlier prophets, and by the later.[1357] Stade\npoints out that this is the only passage of the Old Testament in which\nthe Teraphim are said to speak.[1358] The language has one symptom of a\nlate period.[1359]\n\nAfter emphasising the futility of images, enchantments and dreams, this\nlittle oracle says, therefore the people wander like sheep: they have\nno shepherd. Shepherd in this connection cannot mean civil ruler, but\nmust be religious director.\n\n_Ask from Jehovah rain in the time of the latter rain.[1360] Jehovah is\nthe maker of the lightning-flashes, and the winter rain He gives to\nthem\u2014to every man herbage in the field. But the Teraphim speak\nnothingness, and the sorcerers see lies, and dreams discourse vanity,\nand they comfort in vain. Wherefore they wander (?)[1361] like a flock\nof sheep, and flee about,[1362] for there is no shepherd._\n\n\n 5. AGAINST EVIL SHEPHERDS (x. 3-12).\n\nThe unity of this section is more apparent than its connection with the\npreceding, which had spoken of the want of a shepherd, or religious\ndirector, of Israel, while this is directed against their shepherds and\nleaders, meaning their foreign tyrants.[1363] The figure is taken from\nJeremiah xxiii. 1 ff., where, besides, _to visit upon_[1364] is used in\na sense of punishment, but the simple _visit_[1365] in the sense of to\nlook after, just as within ver. 3 of this tenth chapter. Who these\nforeign tyrants are is not explicitly stated, but the reference to\nEgypt and Assyria as lands whence the Jewish captives shall be brought\nhome, while at the same time there is a Jewish nation in Judah, suits\nonly the Greek period, after Ptolemy had taken so many Jews to\nEgypt,[1366] and there were numbers still scattered throughout the\nother great empire in the north, to which, as we have already seen, the\nJews applied the name of Assyria. The reference can hardly suit the\nyears after Seleucus and Ptolemy granted to the Jews in their\nterritories the rights of citizens. The captive Jews are to be brought\nback to Gilead and Lebanon. Why exactly these are mentioned, and\nneither Samaria nor Galilee, forms a difficulty, to whatever age we\nassign the chapter. The language of x. 3-12 has several late\nfeatures.[1367] Joseph or Ephraim, here and elsewhere in these\nchapters, is used of the portion of Israel still in captivity, in\ncontrast to Judah, the returned community.\n\nThe passage predicts that Jehovah will change His poor leaderless\nsheep, the Jews, into war-horses, and give them strong chiefs and\nweapons of war. They shall overthrow the heathen, and Jehovah will\nbring back His exiles. The passage is therefore one with chap. ix.\n\n_My wrath is hot against the shepherds, and I will make visitation on\nthe he-goats:[1368] yea, Jehovah of Hosts will[1369] visit His flock,\nthe house of Judah, and will make them like His splendid war-horses.\nFrom Him the corner-stone, from Him the stay,[1370] from Him the\nwar-bow, from Him the oppressor\u2014shall go forth together. And in battle\nshall they trample on heroes as on the dirt of the streets,[1371] and\nfight, for Jehovah is with them, and the riders on horses shall be\nabashed. And the house of Judah will I make strong and work salvation\nfor the house of Joseph, and bring them back,[1372] for I have pity\nfor them,[1373] and they shall be as though I had not put them\naway,[1373] for I am Jehovah their God[1373] and I will hold converse\nwith them.[1373] And Ephraim shall be as heroes,[1374] and their heart\nshall be glad as with wine, and their children shall behold and be\nglad: their heart shall rejoice in Jehovah. I will whistle for them and\ngather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as\nthey once were. I scattered them[1375] among the nations, but among the\nfar-away they think of Me, and they will bring up[1376] their children,\nand come back. And I will fetch them home from the land of Mi\u1e63raim, and\nfrom Asshur[1377] will I gather them, and to the land of Gilead and\nLeb\u0101non will I bring them in, though_ these _be not found_ sufficient\n_for them. And they[1378] shall pass through the sea of Egypt,[1379]\nand He shall smite the sea of breakers, and all the deeps of the Nile\nshall be dried, and the pride of Assyria brought down, and the sceptre\nof Egypt swept aside. And their strength[1380] shall be in Jehovah, and\nin His Name shall they boast themselves[1381]\u2014oracle of Jehovah._\n\n\n 6. WAR UPON THE SYRIAN TYRANTS (xi. 1-3).\n\nThis is taken by some with the previous chapter, by others with the\npassage following. Either connection seems precarious. No conclusion as\nto date can be drawn from the language. But the localities threatened\nwere on the southward front of the Seleucid kingdom. _Open, Leb\u0101non,\nthy doors_ suits the Egyptian invasions of that kingdom. To which of\nthese the passage refers cannot of course be determined. The shepherds\nare the rulers.\n\n_Open, Leb\u0101non, thy doors, that the fire may devour in thy cedars.\nWail, O pine-tree, for the cedar is fallen;[1382] wail, O oaks of\nBashan, for fallen is the impenetrable[1383] wood. Hark to the wailing\nof the shepherds! for their glory is destroyed. Hark how the lions\nroar! for blasted is the pride[1384] of Jordan._\n\n\n 7. THE REJECTION AND MURDER OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD\n (xi. 4-17, xiii. 7-9).\n\nThere follows now, in the rest of chap. xi., a longer oracle, to which\nEwald and most critics after him have suitably attached chap. xiii. 7-9.\n\nThis passage appears to rise from circumstances similar to those of the\npreceding and from the same circle of ideas. Jehovah\u2019s people are His\nflock and have suffered. Their rulers are their shepherds; and the\nrulers of other peoples are their shepherds. A true shepherd is sought\nfor Israel in place of the evil ones which have distressed them. The\nlanguage shows traces of a late date.[1385] No historical allusion is\nobvious in the passage. The _buyers_ and _sellers_ of God\u2019s sheep might\nreflect the Seleucids and Ptolemies between whom Israel were exchanged\nfor many years, but probably mean their native leaders. The _three\nshepherds cut off in a month_ were interpreted by the supporters of the\npre-exilic date of the chapters as Zechariah and Shallum (2 Kings xv.\n8-13), and another whom these critics assume to have followed them to\ndeath, but of him the history has no trace. The supporters of a\nMaccabean date for the prophecy recall the quick succession of high\npriests before the Maccabean rising. The _one month_ probably means\nnothing more than a very short time.\n\nThe allegory which our passage unfolds is given, like so many more in\nHebrew prophecy, to the prophet himself to enact. It recalls the\npictures in Jeremiah and Ezekiel of the overthrow of the false\nshepherds of Israel, and the appointment of a true shepherd.[1386]\nJehovah commissions the prophet to become shepherd to His sheep that\nhave been so cruelly abused by their guides and rulers. Like the\nshepherds of Palestine, the prophet took two staves to herd his flock.\nHe called one _Grace_, the other _Union_. In a month he cut off three\nshepherds\u2014both _month_ and _three_ are probably formal terms. But he\ndid not get on well with his charge. They were wilful and quarrelsome.\nSo he broke his staff Grace, in token that his engagement was\ndissolved. The dealers of the sheep saw that he acted for God. He asked\nfor his wage, if they cared to give it. They gave him thirty pieces of\nsilver, the price of an injured slave,[1387] which by God\u2019s command he\ncast into the treasury of the Temple, as if in token that it was God\nHimself whom they paid with so wretched a sum. And then he broke his\nother staff, to signify that the brotherhood between Judah and Israel\nwas broken. Then, to show the people that by their rejection of the\ngood shepherd they must fall a prey to an evil one, the prophet assumed\nthe character of the latter. But another judgment follows. In chap.\nxiii. 7-9 the good shepherd is smitten and the flock dispersed.\n\nThe spiritual principles which underlie this allegory are obvious.\nGod\u2019s own sheep, persecuted and helpless though they be, are yet\nobstinate, and their obstinacy not only renders God\u2019s good-will to them\nfutile, but causes the death of the one man who could have done them\ngood. The guilty sacrifice the innocent, but in this execute their own\ndoom. That is a summary of the history of Israel. But had the writer of\nthis allegory any special part of that history in view? Who were the\n_dealers of the flock_?\n\n_Thus saith Jehovah my God:[1388] Shepherd the flock of slaughter,\nwhose purchasers slaughter them impenitently, and whose sellers\nsay,[1389] Blessed be Jehovah, for I am rich!\u2014and their shepherds do\nnot spare them. [For I will no more spare the inhabitants of the\nland\u2014oracle of Jehovah; but lo! I am about to give mankind[1390] over,\neach into the hand of his shepherd,[1391] and into the hand of his\nking; and they shall destroy the land, and I will not secure it from\ntheir hands.[1392]] And I shepherded the flock of slaughter for the\nsheep merchants,[1393] and I took to me two staves\u2014the one I called\nGrace, and the other I called Union[1394]\u2014and so I shepherded the\nsheep. And I destroyed the three shepherds in one month. Then was my\nsoul vexed with them, and they on their part were displeased with me.\nAnd I said: I will not shepherd you: what is dead, let it die; and what\nis destroyed, let it be destroyed; and those that survive, let them\ndevour one another\u2019s flesh! And I took my staff Grace, and I brake it\nso as to annul my covenant which I made with all the peoples.[1395] And\nin that day it was annulled, and the dealers of the sheep,[1396] who\nwatched me, knew that it was Jehovah\u2019s word. And I said to them, If it\nbe good in your sight, give me my wage, and if it be not good, let it\ngo! And they weighed out my wage, thirty pieces of silver. Then said\nJehovah to me, Throw it into the treasury[1397] (the precious wage at\nwhich I[1398] had been valued of them). So I took the thirty pieces of\nsilver, and cast them to the House of Jehovah, to the treasury.[1399]\nAnd I brake my second staff, Union, so as to dissolve the brotherhood\nbetween Judah and Israel.[1400] And Jehovah said to me: Take again to\nthee the implements of a worthless shepherd: for lo! I am about to\nappoint a shepherd over the land; the destroyed he will not visit, the\n...[1401] he will not seek out, the wounded he will not heal, the\n...;[1402] he will not cherish, but he will devour the flesh of the fat\nand....[1403] Woe to My worthless[1404] shepherd, that deserts the\nflock! The sword be upon his arm and his right eye! May his arm wither,\nand his right eye be blinded._\n\nUpon this follows the section xiii. 7-9, which develops the tragedy of\nthe nation to its climax in the murder of the good shepherd.\n\n_Up, Sword, against My shepherd and the man My compatriot[1405]\u2014oracle\nof Jehovah of Hosts. Smite[1406] the shepherd, that the sheep may be\nscattered; and I will turn My hand against the little ones.[1407] And\nit shall come to pass in all the land\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014that two-thirds\nshall be cut off in it, and perish, but a third shall be left in it.\nAnd I shall bring the third into the fire, and smelt it as _men_ smelt\nsilver and try it as _men_ try gold. It shall call upon My Name, and I\nwill answer it. And I will[1408] say, It is My people, and it will say,\nJehovah my God!_\n\n\n 8. JUDAH _versus_ JERUSALEM (xii. 1-7).\n\nA title, though probably of later date than the text,[1409] introduces\nwith the beginning of chap. xii. an oracle plainly from circumstances\ndifferent from those of the preceding chapters. The nations, not\nparticularised as they have been, gather to the siege of Jerusalem,\nand, very singularly, Judah is gathered with them against her own\ncapital. But God makes the city like one of those great boulders,\ndeeply embedded, which husbandmen try to pull up from their fields, but\nit tears and wounds the hands of those who would remove it. Moreover\nGod strikes with panic all the besiegers, save only Judah, who, her\neyes being opened, perceives that God is with Jerusalem and turns to\nher help. Jerusalem remains in her place; but the glory of the victory\nis first Judah\u2019s, so that the house of David may not have too much fame\nnor boast over the country districts. The writer doubtless alludes to\nsome temporary schism between the capital and country caused by the\narrogance of the former. But we have no means of knowing when this took\nplace. It must often have been imminent in the days both before and\nespecially after the Exile, when Jerusalem had absorbed all the\nreligious privilege and influence of the nation. The language is\nundoubtedly late.[1410]\n\nThe figure of Jerusalem as a boulder, deeply bedded in the soil, which\ntears the hands that seek to remove it, is a most true and expressive\nsummary of the history of heathen assaults upon her. Till she herself\nwas rent by internal dissensions, and the Romans at last succeeded in\ntearing her loose, she remained planted on her own site.[1411] This\nwas very true of all the Greek period. Seleucids and Ptolemies alike\nwounded themselves upon her. But at what period did either of them\ninduce Judah to take part against her? Not in the Maccabean.\n\n\n _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah upon Israel._\n\n_Oracle of Jehovah, who stretched out the heavens and founded the\nearth, and formed the spirit of man within him: Lo, I am about to make\nJerusalem a cup of reeling for all the surrounding peoples, and even\nJudah[1412] shall be at the siege of Jerusalem. And it shall come to\npass in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone to be lifted[1413]\nby all the peoples\u2014all who lift it do indeed wound[1414] themselves\u2014and\nthere are gathered against it all nations of the earth. In that\nday\u2014oracle of Jehovah\u2014I will smite every horse with panic, and their\nriders with madness; but as for the house of Judah, I will open\nits[1415] eyes, though every horse of the peoples I smite with\nblindness. Then shall the chiefs[1416] of Judah say in their hearts,\n...[1417] the inhabitants of Jerusalem through Jehovah of Hosts their\nGod. In that day will I make the districts of Judah like a pan of fire\namong timber and like a torch among sheaves, so that they devour right\nand left all the peoples round about, but Jerusalem shall still abide\non its own site.[1418] And Jehovah shall first give victory to the\ntents[1419] of Judah, so that the fame of the house of David and the\nfame of the inhabitants of Jerusalem be not too great in contrast to\nJudah._\n\n\n 9. FOUR RESULTS OF JERUSALEM\u2019S DELIVERANCE\n (xii. 8\u2014xiii. 6).\n\nUpon the deliverance of Jerusalem, by the help of the converted Judah,\nthere follow four results, each introduced by the words that it\nhappened _in that day_ (xii. 8, 9, xiii. 1, 2). First, the people of\nJerusalem shall themselves be strengthened. Second, the hostile heathen\nshall be destroyed, but on the house of David and all Jerusalem the\nspirit of penitence shall be poured, and they will lament for the good\nshepherd whom they slew. Third, a fountain for sin and uncleanness\nshall be opened. Fourth, the idols, the unclean spirit, and prophecy,\nnow so degraded, shall all be abolished. The connection of these\noracles with the preceding is obvious, as well as with the oracle\ndescribing the murder of the good shepherd (xiii. 7-9). When we see how\nthis is presupposed by xii. 9 ff., we feel more than ever that its\nright place is between chaps. xi. and xii. There are no historical\nallusions. But again the language gives evidence of a late date.[1420]\nAnd throughout the passage there is a repetition of formal phrases\nwhich recalls the Priestly Code and the general style of the\npost-exilic age.[1421] Notice that no king is mentioned, although there\nare several points at which, had he existed, he must have been\nintroduced.\n\n1. The first of the four effects of Jerusalem\u2019s deliverance from the\nheathen is the promotion of her weaklings to the strength of her\nheroes, and of her heroes to divine rank (xii. 8). _In that day Jehovah\nwill protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the lame among them\nshall in that day be like David_ himself _, and the house of David like\nGod, like the Angel of Jehovah before them_.\n\n2. The second paragraph of this series very remarkably emphasises that\nupon her deliverance Jerusalem shall not give way to rejoicing, but to\npenitent lamentation for the murder of him whom she has pierced\u2014the\ngood shepherd whom her people have rejected and slain. This is one of\nthe few ethical strains which run through these apocalyptic chapters.\nIt forms their highest interest for us. Jerusalem\u2019s mourning is\ncompared to that for _Hadad-Rimmon in the valley_ or _plain of\nMegiddo_. This is the classic battle-field of the land, and the theatre\nupon which Apocalypse has placed the last contest between the hosts of\nGod and the hosts of evil.[1422] In Israel\u2019s history it had been the\nground not only of triumph but of tears. The greatest tragedy of that\nhistory, the defeat and death of the righteous Josiah, took place\nthere;[1423] and since the earliest Jewish interpreters the _mourning\nof Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo_ has been referred to the\nmourning for Josiah.[1424] Jerome identifies Hadad-Rimmon with\nRumm\u00e2ni,[1425] a village on the plain still extant, close to Megiddo.\nBut the lamentation for Josiah was at Jerusalem; and it cannot be\nproved that Hadad-Rimmon is a place-name. It may rather be the name of\nthe object of the mourning, and as Hadad was a divine name among\nPh\u0153nicians and Arameans, and Rimm\u00f4n the pomegranate was a sacred tree,\na number of critics have supposed this to be a title of Adonis, and the\nmourning like that excessive grief which Ezekiel tells us was yearly\ncelebrated for Tammuz.[1426] This, however, is not fully proved.[1427]\nObserve, further, that while the reading Hadad-Rimmon is by no means\npast doubt, the sanguine blossoms and fruit of the pomegranate,\n\u201cred-ripe at the heart,\u201d would naturally lead to its association with\nthe slaughtered Adonis.\n\n_And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all\nthe nations who have come in upon Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the\nhouse of David and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of\ngrace and of supplication, and they shall look to him[1428] whom they\nhave pierced; and they shall lament for him, as with lamentation for an\nonly son, and bitterly grieve for him, as with grief for a first-born.\nIn that day lamentation shall be as great in Jerusalem as the\nlamentation for Hadad-Rimmon[1429] in the valley of Megiddo. And the\nland shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of\nDavid by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house\nof Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the\nhouse of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of\nShime\u2019i[1430] by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the\nfamilies who are left, every family by itself, and their wives by\nthemselves._\n\n3. The third result of Jerusalem\u2019s deliverance from the heathen\nshall be the opening of a fountain of cleansing. This purging of\nher sin follows fitly upon her penitence just described. _In that\nday a fountain shall be opened for the house of David, and for the\ninhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness._[1431]\n\n4. The fourth consequence is the removal of idolatry, of the unclean\nspirit and of the degraded prophets from her midst. The last is\nespecially remarkable: for it is not merely false prophets, as\ndistinguished from true, who shall be removed; but prophecy in general.\nIt is singular that in almost its latest passage the prophecy of Israel\nshould return to the line of its earliest representative, Amos, who\nrefused to call himself prophet. As in his day, the prophets had become\nmere professional and mercenary oracle-mongers, abjured to the point of\ndeath by their own ashamed and wearied relatives.\n\n_And it shall be in that day\u2014oracle of Jehovah of Hosts\u2014I will cut off\nthe names of the idols from the land, and they shall not be remembered\nany more. And also the prophets and the unclean spirit will I expel\nfrom the land. And it shall come to pass, if any man prophesy again,\nthen shall his father and mother who begat him say to him, Thou shall\nnot live, for thou speakest falsehood in the name of Jehovah; and his\nfather and mother who begat him shall stab him for his prophesying. And\nit shall be in that day that the prophets shall be ashamed of their\nvisions when they prophesy, and shall not wear the leather cloak in\norder to lie. And he will say, No prophet am I! A tiller of the ground\nI am, for the ground is my possession[1432] from my youth up. And they\nshall say to him, What are these wounds in[1433] thy hands? and he\nshall say, What I was wounded with in the house of my lovers!_\n\n\n 10. JUDGMENT OF THE HEATHEN AND SANCTIFICATION\n OF JERUSALEM (xiv.).\n\nIn another apocalyptic vision the prophet beholds Jerusalem again beset\nby the heathen. But Jehovah Himself intervenes, appearing in person,\nand an earthquake breaks out at His feet. The heathen are smitten, as\nthey stand, into mouldering corpses. The remnant of them shall be\nconverted to Jehovah and take part in the annual Feast of Booths. If\nany refuse they shall be punished with drought. But Jerusalem shall\nabide in security and holiness: every detail of her equipment shall be\nconsecrate. The passage has many resemblances to the preceding\noracles.[1434] The language is undoubtedly late, and the figures are\nborrowed from other prophets, chiefly Ezekiel. It is a characteristic\nspecimen of the Jewish Apocalypse. The destruction of the heathen is\ndescribed in verses of terrible grimness: there is no tenderness nor\nhope exhibited for them. And even in the picture of Jerusalem\u2019s\nholiness we have no really ethical elements, but the details are purely\nceremonial.\n\n_Lo! a day is coming for Jehovah,[1435] when thy spoil will be divided\nin thy midst. And I will gather all the nations to besiege Jerusalem,\nand the city will be taken and the houses plundered and the women\nravished, and the half of the city shall go into captivity, but the\nrest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. And Jehovah\nshall go forth and do battle with those nations, as in the day when He\nfought in the day of contest. And His feet shall stand in that day on\nthe Mount of Olives which is over against Jerusalem on the east, and\nthe Mount of Olives shall be split into halves from east to west by a\nvery great ravine, and half of the Mount will slide northwards and half\nsouthwards. ...,[1436] for the ravine of mountains[1437] shall extend\nto \u2018A\u1e63al,[1438] and ye shall flee as ye fled from before the earthquake\nin the days of Uzziah king of Judah,[1439] and Jehovah my God will come\nand[1440] all the holy ones with Him.[1441] And in that day there shall\nnot be light, ... congeal.[1442] And it shall be one[1443] day\u2014it is\nknown to Jehovah[1444]\u2014neither day nor night; and it shall come to pass\nthat at evening time there shall be light._\n\n_And it shall be in that day that living waters shall flow forth from\nJerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the\nwestern sea:_ both _in summer and in winter shall it be. And Jehovah\nshall be King over all the earth: in that day Jehovah will be One and\nHis Name One. All the land shall be changed to plain,[1445] from Geba\nto Rimmon,[1446] south of Jerusalem; but she shall be high and abide in\nher place[1447] from the Gate of Benjamin up to the place of the First\nGate, up to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hanan\u2019el as far as\nthe King\u2019s Winepresses. And they shall dwell in it, and there shall be\nno more Ban,[1448] and Jerusalem shall abide in security. And this\nshall be the stroke with which Jehovah will smite all the peoples who\nhave warred against Jerusalem: He will make their flesh moulder while\nthey still stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall moulder in their\nsockets, and their tongue shall moulder in their mouth._\n\n[_And it shall come to pass in that day, there shall be a great\nconfusion from Jehovah among them, and they shall grasp every man the\nhand of his neighbour, and his hand shall be lifted against the hand\nof his neighbour.[1449] And even Judah shall fight against Jerusalem,\nand the wealth of all the nations round about shall be swept up, gold\nand silver and garments, in a very great mass._ These two verses, 13\nand 14, obviously disturb the connection, which ver. 15 as obviously\nresumes with ver. 12. They are, therefore, generally regarded as an\nintrusion.[1450] But why they have been inserted is not clear. Ver. 14\nis a curious echo of the strife between Judah and Jerusalem described\nin chap. xii. They may be not a mere intrusion, but simply out of their\nproper place: yet, if so, where this proper place lies in these oracles\nis impossible to determine.]\n\n_And even so shall be the plague upon the horses, mules, camels and\nasses, and all the beasts which are in those camps\u2014just like this\nplague. And it shall come to pass that all that survive of all the\nnations who have come up against Jerusalem, shall come up from year to\nyear to do obeisance to King Jehovah of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of\nBooths. And it shall come to pass that whosoever of all the races of\nthe earth will not come up to Jerusalem to do obeisance to King Jehovah\nof Hosts, upon them there shall be no rain. And if the race of Egypt go\nnot up nor come in, upon them also shall[1451] come the plague, with\nwhich Jehovah shall strike the nations that go not up to keep the Feast\nof Booths. Such shall be the punishment[1] of Egypt, and the\npunishment[1452] of all nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of\nBooths._\n\nThe Feast of Booths was specially one of thanksgiving for the harvest;\nthat is why the neglect of it is punished by the withholding of the\nrain which brings the harvest. But such a punishment for such a neglect\nshows how completely prophecy has become subject to the Law. One is\ntempted to think what Amos or Jeremiah or even \u201cMalachi\u201d would have\nthought of this. Verily all the writers of the prophetical books do\nnot stand upon the same level of religion. The writer remembers that\nthe curse of no rain cannot affect the Egyptians, the fertility of\nwhose rainless land is secured by the annual floods of her river. So he\nhas to insert a special verse for Egypt. She also will be plagued by\nJehovah, yet he does not tell us in what fashion her plague will come.\n\nThe book closes with a little oracle of the most ceremonial\ndescription, connected not only in temper but even by subject with what\nhas gone before. The very horses, which hitherto have been regarded as\ntoo foreign,[1453] or\u2014as even in this group of oracles[1454]\u2014as too\nwarlike, to exist in Jerusalem, shall be consecrated to Jehovah. And so\nvast shall be the multitudes who throng from all the earth to the\nannual feasts and sacrifices at the Temple, that the pots of the latter\nshall be as large as the great altar-bowls,[1455] and every pot in\nJerusalem and Judah shall be consecrated for use in the ritual. This\nhallowing of the horses raises the question, whether the passage can be\nfrom the same hand as wrote the prediction of the disappearance of all\nhorses from Jerusalem.[1456]\n\n_In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto\nJehovah. And the_ very _pots in the House of Jehovah shall be as the\nbowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall\nbe holy to Jehovah of Hosts, and all who sacrifice shall come and take\nof them and cook in them. And there shall be no more any pedlar[1457]\nin the House of Jehovah of Hosts in that day._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1324] So Staerk, who thinks Amos I. made use of vv. 1-5.\n\n[1325] ix. 1, \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd, _mankind_, in contrast to the tribes of Israel; 3,\n\u05d7\u05e8\u05d5\u05e5, _gold_; 5, \u05d9\u05e9\u05d1 as passive, cf. xii. 6; \u05d4\u05d5\u05d1\u05d9\u05e9, Hi. of \u05d1\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e9\u05c1, in\npassive sense only after Jeremiah (cf. above, p. 412, on Joel); in 2\nSam. xix. 6, Hosea ii. 7, it is active.\n\n[1326] See p. 442.\n\n[1327] ix. 1.\n\n[1328] Heb. _resting-place_: cf. Zech. vi. 8, _bring Mine anger to\nrest_. This meets the objection of Bredenkamp and others, that \u05de\u05e0\u05d5\u05d7\u05d4 is\notherwise used of Jehovah alone, in consequence of which they refer the\nsuffix to Him.\n\n[1329] The expression _hath an eye_ is so unusual that Klostermann,\n_Theo. Litt. Zeit._, 1879, 566 (quoted by Nowack), proposes to read for\n\u05e2\u05d9\u05df \u05e2\u05e8\u05d9, _Jehovah\u2019s are the cities of the heathen_. For \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd, _mankind_,\nas = _heathen_ cf. Jer. xxxii. 20.\n\n[1330] So LXX.: Heb. _also_.\n\n[1331] So LXX.: Heb. has verb in sing.\n\n[1332] Cf. Nahum iii. 8; Isa. xxvi. 1.\n\n[1333] Read \u05de\u05b4\u05d1\u05b0\u05d8\u05b8\u05d7\u05b8\u05d4.\n\n[1334] Deut. xxiii. 3 (Heb., 2 Eng.).\n\n[1335] The prepositions refer to the half-breeds. Ezekiel uses the term\n_to eat upon the blood_, _i.e._ meat eaten without being ritually slain\nand consecrated, for illegal sacrifices (xxxiii. 35: cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 32\nf.; Lev. xix. 26, xvii. 11-14).\n\n[1336]\u200e \u05de\u05b4\u05e6\u05b7\u05b8\u05bc\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4 for \u05de\u05b4\u05df\u05be\u05e6\u05b8\u05d1\u05b8\u05d0; but to be amended to \u05de\u05b7\u05e6\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4,\u200e 1 Sam. xiv. 12,\n_a military post_. Ewald reads \u05de\u05bb\u05e6\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4, _rampart_. LXX. \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 = \u05de\u05b7\u05e6\u05b5\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4.\n\n[1337] ix. 10, \u05de\u05b9\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05dc, cf. Dan. xi. 4; \u05d0\u05e4\u05e1\u05d9 \u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 only in late writings\n(unless Deut. xxxiii. 17 be early)\u2014see Eckardt, p. 80; 12, \u05d1\u05e6\u05bc\u05e8\u05d5\u05df is\n\u1f05\u03c0\u03b1\u03be \u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd; the last clause of 12 is based on Isa. lxi. 7. If our\ninterpretation of \u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7 and \u05e0\u05d5\u05e9\u05e2 be right, they are also symptoms of a\nlate date.\n\u200e\n[1338] \u05e0\u05d5\u05e9\u05c1\u05e2 (ver. 9): the passive participle.\n\n[1339] Cf. _Isaiah xl.\u2014lxvi._ (Expositor\u2019s Bible), p. 219.\n\n[1340] Why _chariot from Ephraim_ and _horse from Jerusalem_ is\nexplained in _Hist. Geog._, pp. 329-331.\n\n[1341] See above.\n\n[1342] Symbol of peace as the horse was of war.\n\n[1343] Son of she-asses.\n\n[1344] Mass.: LXX. _He_.\n\n[1345] Heb. _blood of thy covenant_, but the suffix refers to the whole\nphrase (Duhm, _Theol. der Proph._, p. 143). The covenant is Jehovah\u2019s;\nthe blood, that which the people shed in sacrifice to ratify the\ncovenant.\n\n[1346] Heb. adds _there is no water in it_, but this is either a gloss,\nor perhaps an attempt to make sense out of a dittography of \u05de\u05d1\u05d5\u05e8, or a\ncorruption of _none shall be ashamed_.\n\n[1347] Isa. lxi. 7.\n\n[1348] _Doctrine of the Prophets_, Note A, p. 472.\n\n[1349] 14, on \u05ea\u05d9\u05de\u05df see Eckardt; 15, \u05d6\u05d5\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea, Aramaism; \u05db\u05d1\u05e9\u05c1 is late; 17,\n\u05d4\u05ea\u05e0\u05d5\u05e1\u05e1, only here and Psalm lx. 6; \u05e0\u05d5\u05d1, probably late.\n\n[1350] So LXX.: Heb. reads, _thy sons, O Javan_.\n\n[1351] LXX. \u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03ac\u03bb\u1ff3 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6, _in the tossing of His threat_,\n\u05d1\u05e9\u05e2\u05e8 \u05d2\u05e2\u05e8\u05d5 (?) or \u05d1\u05e9\u05e2\u05e8 \u05d4\u05e2\u05d3\u05d5. It is natural to see here a reference to\nthe Theophanies of Hab. iii. 3, Deut. xxxiii. (see above, pp. 150 f.).\n\n[1352] Perhaps \u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05db\u05b0\u05dc\u05d5\u05bc, _overcome them_. LXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bb\u03ce\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\n\n[1353] Heb. _stones of a sling_, \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05e7\u05dc\u05e2. Wellhausen and Nowack read\n_sons_, \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9, but what then is \u05e7\u05dc\u05e2?\n\n[1354] Reading \u05d3\u05de\u05dd for Heb. \u05d5\u05d4\u05de\u05d5, _and roar_.\n\n[1355] Heb. _like a flock of sheep His people_, (but how is one to\nconstrue this with the context?) _for (? like) stones of a diadem\nlifting themselves up (? shimmering) over His land_. Wellhausen and\nNowack delete _for stones ... shimmering_ as a gloss. This would leave\n_like a flock of sheep His people in His land_, to which it is proposed\nto add _He will feed_. This gives good sense.\n\n[1356] Wellhausen, reading \u05d8\u05d5\u05d1\u05d4, fem. suffix for neuter. Ewald and\nothers _He_. Hitzig and others _they_, the people.\n\n[1357] Of these cf. \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 5; the late Jer. xliv. 8 ff.; Isa. lxv.\n3-5; and, in the Priestly Law, Lev. xix. 31, xx. 6.\n\n[1358] _Z.A.T.W._, I. 60. He compares this verse with 1 Sam. xv. 23. In\nEzek. xxi. 26 they give oracles.\n\n[1359]\u200e \u05d7\u05d6\u05d9\u05d6, _lightning-flash_, only here and in Job xxviii. 26,\nxxxviii. 25.\n\n[1360] LXX. read: _in season early rain and latter rain_.\n\n[1361]\u200e \u05e0\u05e1\u05e2\u05d5, used of a nomadic life in Jer. xxxi. 24 (23), and so\nit is possible that in a later stage of the language it had come to\nmean to wander or stray. But this is doubtful, and there may be a false\nreading, as appears from LXX. \u1f10\u03be\u03b7\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n[1362] For \u05d9\u05e2\u05e0\u05d5 read \u05d5\u05d9\u05e0\u05e2\u05d5. The LXX. \u1f10\u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd read \u05d5\u05d9\u05e8\u05e2\u05d5.\n\n[1363] There can therefore be none of that connection between the two\npieces which Kirkpatrick assumes (p. 454 and note 2).\n\n[1364]\u200e \u05e4\u05e7\u05d3 \u05e2\u05dc\n\n[1365]\u200e \u05e4\u05e7\u05d3 \u05d0\u05ea\n\n[1366] See above, p. 444.\n\n[1367] x. 5, \u05d1\u05d5\u05e1, Eckardt, p. 82; 6, 12, \u05d2\u05b4\u05bc\u05d1\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8, Pi., cf. Eccles. x.\n10, where it alone occurs besides here; 5, 11, \u05d4\u05d1\u05d9\u05e9\u05d5 in passive sense.\n\n[1368] As we should say, _bell-wethers_: cf. Isa. xiv. 9, also a late\nmeaning.\n\n[1369] So LXX., reading \u05db\u05d9\u05be\u05d9\u05e4\u05e7\u05d3 for \u05db\u05d9\u05be\u05e4\u05e7\u05d3.\n\n[1370] _Corner-stone_ as name for a chief: cf. Judg. xx. 2; 1 Sam. xiv.\n38; Isa. xix. 13. _Stay_ or _tent-pin_, Isa. xxii. 23. _From Him_,\nothers _from them_.\n\n[1371] Read \u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05d2\u05b4\u05bc\u05d1\u05b9\u05bc\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd and \u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05d8\u05b4\u05d9\u05d8 (Wellhausen).\n\n[1372] Read \u05d5\u05b7\u05d4\u05b2\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d1\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd for the Mass. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05d1\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd, _and I will\nmake them to dwell_.\n\n[1373]\u200e \u05e8\u05d7\u05de\u05ea\u05d9\u05dd and \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4\u05dd ,\u05d6\u05e0\u05d7\u05ea\u05d9\u05dd and \u05d0\u05e2\u05e0\u05dd, keywords of Hosea i.\u2014iii.\n\n[1374] LXX.; sing. Heb.\n\n[1375] Changing the Heb. points which make the verb future. See\nNowack\u2019s note.\n\n[1376] With LXX. read \u05d5\u05b0\u05d7\u05b4\u05d9\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc for Mass. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d7\u05b8\u05d9\u05d5\u05bc.\n\n[1377] See above, pp. 451, 471.\n\n[1378] So LXX.; Mass. sing.\n\n[1379] Heb. \u05e6\u05e8\u05d4, _narrow sea_: so LXX., but Wellhausen suggests \u05de\u05e6\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd,\nwhich Nowack adopts.\n\n[1380]\u200e \u05d2\u05d1\u05e8\u05ea\u05dd for \u05d2\u05d1\u05e8\u05ea\u05d9\u05dd.\n\n[1381] For \u05d9\u05ea\u05d4\u05dc\u05db\u05d5 read \u05d9\u05ea\u05d4\u05dc\u05dc\u05d5, with LXX. and Syr.\n\n[1382] Heb. adds here a difficult clause, _for nobles are wasted_.\nProbably a gloss.\n\n[1383] After the \u1e32er\u00ee.\n\n[1384] I.e. _rankness_; applied to the thick vegetation in the larger\nbed of the stream: see _Hist. Geog._, p. 484.\n\n[1385] xi. 5, \u05d5\u05b7\u05d0\u05e2\u05b0\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05e8, Hiph., but intransitive, _grow rich_; 6, \u05de\u05de\u05e6\u05d9\u05d0; \u200e7,\n10, \u05e0\u05e2\u05dd (?);\u200e 8, \u05d1\u05d7\u05dc, Aram.; 13, \u05d9\u05b0\u05e7\u05b8\u05e8, Aram., Jer. xx. 5, Ezek. xxii. 25,\nJob xxviii. 10; in Esther ten, in Daniel four times (Eckardt); xiii. 7,\n\u05e2\u05de\u05d9\u05ea, one of the marks of the affinity of the language of \u201cZech.\u201d\nix.\u2014xiv. to that of the Priestly Code (cf. Lev. v. 21, xviii. 20,\netc.), but in P it is concrete, here abstract; \u05e6\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd;\u200e 8, \u05d2\u05d5\u05e2, see\nEckardt, p. 85.\n\n[1386] Jer. xxiii. 1-8; Ezek. xxxiv., xxxvii. 24 ff.: cf. Kirkpatrick\nP. 462.\n\n[1387] Exod. xxi. 32.\n\n[1388] LXX. _God of Hosts_.\n\n[1389] Read plural with LXX.\n\n[1390] That is the late Hebrew name for the heathen: cf. ix. 1.\n\n[1391] Heb. \u05e8\u05b5\u05e2\u05b5\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc, _neighbour_; read \u05e8\u05b9\u05e2\u05b5\u05d4\u05d5\u05bc.\n\n[1392] Many take this verse as an intrusion. It certainly seems to add\nnothing to the sense and to interrupt the connection, which is clear\nwhen it is removed.\n\n[1393] Heb. \u05dc\u05b8\u05db\u05b5\u05df \u05e2\u05b2\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05b5\u05bc\u05d9 \u05d4\u05b7\u05e6\u05b9\u05bc\u05d0\u05df, _wherefore the miserable of the flock_,\nwhich makes no sense. But LXX. read \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03a7\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd, and this\nsuggests the Heb. \u05dc\u05db\u05e0\u05e2\u05e0\u05d9, _to the Canaanites_, i.e. _merchants_, _of\nthe sheep_: so in ver. 11.\n\n[1394] Lit. _Bands_.\n\n[1395] The sense is here obscure. Is the text sound? In harmony with\nthe context \u05e2\u05de\u05d9\u05dd ought to mean _tribes of Israel_. But every passage in\nthe O.T. in which \u05e2\u05de\u05d9\u05dd might mean _tribes_ has been shown to have a\ndoubtful text: Deut. xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 3; Hosea x. 14; Micah i. 2.\n\n[1396] See above, note 1393, on the same mis-read phrase in ver. 7.\n\n[1397] Heb. \u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05e6\u05b5\u05e8, _the potter_. LXX. \u03c7\u03c9\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd _smelting\nfurnace_. Read \u05d4\u05b8\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05e6\u05b8\u05e8 by change of \u05d0 for \u05d9: the two are often\nconfounded; see n. 1399.\n\n[1398] Wellhausen and Nowack read _thou hast been valued of them_. But\nthere is no need of this. The clause is a sarcastic parenthesis spoken\nby the prophet himself.\n\n[1399] Again Heb. _the potter_, LXX. _the smelting furnace_, as above\nin ver. 13. The additional clause _House of God_ proves how right it is\nto read _the treasury_, and disposes of the idea that _to throw to the\npotter_ was a proverb for throwing away.\n\n[1400] Two codd. read _Jerusalem_, which Wellhausen and Nowack adopt.\n\n[1401] Heb. \u05d4\u05b7\u05e0\u05b7\u05bc\u05e2\u05b7\u05e8, _the scattered_. LXX. \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n[1402]\u200e \u05d4\u05b7\u05e0\u05b4\u05bc\u05e6\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4, obscure: some translate _the sound_ or _stable_.\n\n[1403] Heb. _and their hoofs he will tear_ (?).\n\n[1404] For Heb. \u05d4\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05dc read as in ver. 15 \u05d4\u05d0\u05d5\u05d9\u05dc\u05d9.\n\n[1405]\u200e \u05e2\u05de\u05d9\u05ea: only in Lev. and here.\n\n[1406]\u200e \u05d4\u05da. Perhaps we should read \u05d0\u05b7\u05db\u05b6\u05bc\u05d4, _I smite_, with Matt. xxvi. 31.\n\n[1407] Some take this as a promise: _turn My hand towards the little\nones_.\n\n[1408] LXX. Heb. \u05d0\u05de\u05e8\u05ea\u05d9, but the \u05d5 has fallen from the front of it.\n\n[1409] See above, p. 462.\n\n[1410] xii. 2, \u05e8\u05b7\u05e2\u05b7\u05dc, a noun not found elsewhere in O. T. We found the\nverb in Nahum ii. 4 (see above, p. 106), and probably in Hab. ii. 16\nfor \u05d5\u05d4\u05e2\u05e8\u05dc (see above, p. 147, n. 412): it is common in Aramean; other\nforms belong to later Hebrew (cf. Eckardt, p. 85). 3, \u05e9\u05c2\u05e8\u05d8 is used in\nclassic Heb. only of intentional cutting and tattooing of oneself; in\nthe sense of _wounding_ which it has here it is frequent in Aramean.\n3 has besides \u05d0\u05d1\u05df \u05de\u05e2\u05de\u05e1\u05d4, not found elsewhere. 4 has three nouns\nterminating in \u05be\u05d5\u05df, two of them\u2014\u05ea\u05de\u05d4\u05d5\u05df, _panic_, and \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8\u05d5\u05df, judicial\n_blindness_\u2014in O. T. only found here and in Deut. xxviii. 28, the\nformer also in Aramean. 7 \u05dc\u05de\u05e2\u05df \u05dc\u05d0 is also cited by Eckardt as used only\nin Ezek. xix. 6, xxvi. 20, and four times in Psalms.\n\n[1411] xii. 6, \u05ea\u05d7\u05ea\u05d9\u05d4.\n\n[1412] The text reads _against_ Judah, as if it with Jerusalem suffered\nthe siege of the heathen. But (1) this makes an unconstruable clause,\nand (2) the context shows that Judah was _against_ Jerusalem. Therefore\nGeiger (_Urschrift_, p. 58) is right in deleting \u05e2\u05dc, and restoring to\nthe clause both sense in itself and harmony with the context. It is\neasy to see why \u05e2\u05dc was afterwards introduced. LXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u1f38\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u1fb3.\n\n[1413] Since Jerome, commentators have thought of a stone by throwing\nor lifting which men try their strength, what we call a \u201cputting\nstone.\u201d But is not the idea rather of one of the large stones\nhalf-buried in the earth which it is the effort of the husbandman to\ntear from its bed and carry out of his field before he ploughs it? Keil\nand Wright think of a heavy stone for building. This is not so likely.\n\n[1414]\u200e \u05e9\u05c2\u05e8\u05d8, elsewhere only in Lev. xxi. 5, is there used of\nintentional cutting of oneself as a sign of mourning. Nowack takes the\nclause as a later intrusion; but there is no real reason for this.\n\n[1415] Heb. _upon Judah will I keep My eyes open_ to protect him, and\nthis has analogies, Job xiv. 3, Jer. xxxii. 19. But the reading _its\neyes_, which is made by inserting a \u05d5 that might easily have dropped\nout through confusion with the initial \u05d5 of the next word, has also\nanalogies (Isa. xlii. 7, etc.), and stands in better parallel to the\nnext clause, as well as to the clauses describing the panic of the\nheathen.\n\n[1416] Others read \u05d0\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05e4\u05b5\u05d9, _thousands_, i.e. _districts_.\n\n[1417] Heb. _I will find me_; LXX. \u03b5\u1f51\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2.\n\n[1418] Hebrew adds a gloss: _in Jerusalem_.\n\n[1419] The population in time of war.\n\n[1420] xii. 10, \u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05da \u05e8\u05d5\u05d7, not earlier than Ezek. xxxix. 29, Joel\niii. 1, 2 (Heb.); \u05ea\u05d7\u05e0\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd, only in Job, Proverbs, Psalms and Daniel;\n\u05d4\u05de\u05e8, an intrans. Hiph.; xiii. 1, \u05de\u05e7\u05d5\u05e8, _fountain_, before Jeremiah\nonly in Hosea xiii. 15 (perhaps a late intrusion), but several times\nin post-exilic writings instead of pre-exilic \u05d1\u05d0\u05e8 (Eckardt); \u05e0\u05b4\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4\nonly after Ezekiel; 3, cf. xii. 10, \u05d3\u05e7\u05e8, chiefly, but not only, in\npost-exilic writings.\n\n[1421] See especially xii. 12 ff., which is very suggestive of the\nPriestly Code.\n\n[1422] _Hist. Geog._, Chap. XIX. On the name _plain of Megiddo_ see\nespecially notes, p. 386.\n\n[1423] 2 Chron. xxxv. 22 ff.\n\n[1424] Another explanation offered by the Targum is the mourning for\n\u201cAhab son of Omri, slain by Hadad-Rimmon son of Tab-Rimmon.\u201d\n\n[1425] LXX. gives for Hadad-Rimmon only the second part, \u1fe5\u03bf\u1ff6\u03bd.\n\n[1426] Ezek. viii. 14.\n\n[1427] Baudissin, _Studien z. Sem. Rel. Gesch._, I. 295 ff.\n\n[1428] Heb. _Me_; several codd. _him_: some read \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b5\u05d9 _to_ (him) _whom\nthey have pierced_; but this would require the elision of the sign of\nthe acc. before _who_. Wellhausen and others think something has fallen\nfrom the text.\n\n[1429] See above, p. 482.\n\n[1430] LXX. \u03a3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd.\n\n[1431] Cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xlvii. 1.\n\n[1432] Read \u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b8\u05de\u05b8\u05d4 \u05e7\u05b4\u05e0\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 for the Mass. \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05d4\u05e7\u05e0\u05e0\u05d9: so Wellhausen.\n\n[1433] Heb. _between_.\n\n[1434] But see below, p. 490.\n\n[1435]\u200e \u05dc\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4: or _belonging to Jehovah_; or like the _Lamed\nauctoris_ or Lamed when construed with passive verbs (see Oxford\n_Heb.-Eng. Dictionary_, pp. 513 and 514, col. 1), _from, by means of,\nJehovah_.\n\n[1436] Heb.: _and ye shall flee, the ravine of My mountains_. The text\nis obviously corrupt, but it is difficult to see how it should be\nrepaired. LXX., Targ. Symmachus and the Babylonian codd. (Baer, p. 84)\nread \u05d5\u05b0\u05e0\u05b4\u05e1\u05b0\u05ea\u05b7\u05bc\u05dd, _shall be closed_, for \u05d5\u05b0\u05e0\u05b7\u05e1\u05b0\u05ea\u05b6\u05bc\u05dd, _ye shall flee_, and this is\nadopted by a number of critics (Bredenkamp, Wellhausen, Nowack). But it\nis hardly possible before the next clause, which says the valley\nextends to \u2019A\u1e63al.\n\n[1437] Wellhausen suggests the ravine (\u05d2\u05d9\u05d0) of Hinnom.\n\n[1438]\u200e \u05d0\u05b8\u05e6\u05b7\u05dc, place-name: cf. \u05d0\u05b8\u05e6\u05b5\u05dc, name of a family of Benjamin,\nviii. 37 f., ix. 43 f.; and \u05d1\u05b5\u05d9\u05ea \u05d4\u05b8\u05d0\u05b5\u05e6\u05b6\u05dc, Micah i. 11. Some would read \u05d0\u05b5\u05e6\u05b6\u05dc\u05bc,\nthe adverb _near by_.\n\n[1439] Amos i. 1.\n\n[1440] LXX.\n\n[1441] LXX.; Heb. _thee_.\n\n[1442] Heb. Kethibh, \u05d9\u05b0\u05e7\u05b8\u05e8\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05d9\u05b4\u05e7\u05b0\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05d5\u05bc\u05df, _jewels_ (? hardly stars\nas some have sought to prove from Job xxxi. 26) _grow dead_ or\n_congealed_. Heb. \u1e32er\u00ea, _jewels and frost_, \u05d5\u05b0\u05e7\u05b4\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05df. LXX. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c8\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2, \u05d5\u05b0\u05e7\u05b8\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc\u05ea \u05d5\u05b0\u05e7\u05b4\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05df, _and cold and frost_. Founding on this\nWellhausen proposes to read \u05d7\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd for \u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8, and renders, _there shall be\nneither heat nor cold nor frost_. So Nowack. But it is not easy to see\nhow \u05d7\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd ever got changed to \u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8.\n\n[1443] _Unique_ or _the same_?\n\n[1444] Taken as a gloss by Wellhausen and Nowack.\n\n[1445]\u200e \u05e2\u05b2\u05e8\u05b8\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4, the name for the Jordan Valley, the Gh\u00f4r (_Hist.\nGeog._, pp. 482-484). It is employed, not because of its fertility, but\nbecause of its level character. Cf. Josephus\u2019 name for it, \u201cthe Great\nPlain\u201d (IV. _Wars_ viii. 2; IV. _Antt._ vi. 1): also 1 Macc. v. 52,\nxvi. 11.\n\n[1446] Geba \u201clong the limit of Judah to the north, 2 Kings xxiii. 8\u201d\n(_Hist. Geog._, pp. 252, 291). Rimmon was on the southern border of\nPalestine (Josh. xv. 32, xix. 7), the present Umm er Rummamin N. of\nBeersheba (Rob., _B. R._).\n\n[1447] Or _be inhabited as it stands_.\n\n[1448] Cf. \u201cMal.\u201d iii. 24 (Heb.).\n\n[1449] Ezek. xxxviii. 21.\n\n[1450] So Wellhausen and Nowack.\n\n[1451] So LXX. and Syr. The Heb. text inserts a _not_.\n\n[1452]\u200e \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0\u05ea, in classic Heb. _sin_; but as in Num. xxxii. 23 and\nIsa. v. 18, _the punishment that sin brings down_.\n\n[1453] Hosea xiv. 3.\n\n[1454] ix. 10.\n\n[1455] So Wellhausen.\n\n[1456] ix. 10.\n\n[1457] Heb. _Canaanite_. Cf. Christ\u2019s action in cleansing the Temple of\nall dealers (Matt. xxi. 12-14).\n\n\n\n\n _JONAH_\n\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd this is the tragedy of the Book of Jonah, that a Book which is\n made the means of one of the most sublime revelations of truth in the\n Old Testament should be known to most only for its connection with a\n whale.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXIV\n\n _THE BOOK OF JONAH_\n\n\nThe book of Jonah is cast throughout in the form of narrative\u2014the\nonly one of our Twelve which is so. This fact, combined with the\nextraordinary events which the narrative relates, starts questions not\nraised by any of the rest. Besides treating, therefore, of the book\u2019s\norigin, unity, division and other commonplaces of introduction, we\nmust further seek in this chapter reasons for the appearance of such a\nnarrative among a collection of prophetic discourses. We have to ask\nwhether the narrative be intended as one of fact; and if not, why the\nauthor was directed to the choice of such a form to enforce the truth\ncommitted to him.\n\nThe appearance of a narrative among the Twelve Prophets is not, in\nitself, so exceptional as it seems to be. Parts of the Books of Amos\nand Hosea treat of the personal experience of their authors. The same\nis true of the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in which the\nprophet\u2019s call and his attitude to it are regarded as elements of\nhis message to men. No: the peculiarity of the Book of Jonah is not\nthe presence of narrative, but the apparent absence of all prophetic\ndiscourse.[1458]\n\nYet even this might be explained by reference to the first part of the\nprophetic canon\u2014Joshua to Second Kings.[1459] These Former Prophets, as\nthey are called, are wholly narrative\u2014narrative in the prophetic spirit\nand written to enforce a moral. Many of them begin as the Book of Jonah\ndoes:[1460] they contain stories, for instance, of Elijah and Elisha,\nwho flourished immediately before Jonah and like him were sent with\ncommissions to foreign lands. It might therefore be argued that the\nBook of Jonah, though narrative, is as much a prophetic book as they\nare, and that the only reason why it has found a place, not with these\nhistories, but among the Later Prophets, is the exceedingly late date\nof its composition.[1461]\n\nThis is a plausible, but not the real, answer to our question. Suppose\nwe were to find the latter by discovering that the Book of Jonah,\nthough in narrative form, is not real history at all, nor pretends to\nbe; but, from beginning to end, is as much a prophetic sermon as any of\nthe other Twelve Books, yet cast in the form of parable or allegory?\nThis would certainly explain the adoption of the book among the Twelve;\nnor would its allegorical character appear without precedent to those\n(and they are among the most conservative of critics) who maintain (as\nthe present writer does not) the allegorical character of the story of\nHosea\u2019s wife.[1462]\n\nIt is, however, when we pass from the form to the substance of the book\nthat we perceive the full justification of its reception among the\nprophets. The truth which we find in the Book of Jonah is as full and\nfresh a revelation of God\u2019s will as prophecy anywhere achieves. That\nGod has _granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life_[1463] is\nnowhere else in the Old Testament so vividly illustrated. It lifts the\nteaching of the Book of Jonah to equal rank with the second part of\nIsaiah, and nearest of all our Twelve to the New Testament. The very\nform in which this truth is insinuated into the prophet\u2019s reluctant\nmind, by contrasting God\u2019s pity for the dim population of Niniveh with\nJonah\u2019s own pity for his perished gourd, suggests the methods of our\nLord\u2019s teaching, and invests the book with the morning air of that high\nday which shines upon the most evangelic of His parables.\n\nOne other remark is necessary. In our effort to appreciate this lofty\ngospel we labour under a disadvantage. That is our sense of humour\u2014our\nmodern sense of humour. Some of the figures in which our author conveys\nhis truth cannot but appear to us grotesque. How many have missed the\nsublime spirit of the book in amusement or offence at its curious\ndetails! Even in circles in which the acceptance of its literal\ninterpretation has been demanded as a condition of belief in its\ninspiration, the story has too often served as a subject for humorous\nremarks. This is almost inevitable if we take it as history. But we\nshall find that one advantage of the theory, which treats the book as\nparable, is that the features, which appear so grotesque to many, are\ntraced to the popular poetry of the writer\u2019s own time and shown to be\nnatural. When we prove this, we shall be able to treat the scenery of\nthe book as we do that of some early Christian fresco, in which,\nhowever rude it be or untrue to nature, we discover an earnestness and\na success in expressing the moral essence of a situation that are not\nalways present in works of art more skilful or more correct.\n\n\n 1. THE DATE OF THE BOOK.\n\nJonah ben-Amittai, from Gath-hepher[1464] in Galilee, came forward in\nthe beginning of the reign of Jeroboam II. to announce that the king\nwould regain the lost territories of Israel from the Pass of Hamath\nto the Dead Sea.[1465] He flourished, therefore, about 780, and had\nthis book been by himself we should have had to place it first of all\nthe Twelve, and nearly a generation before that of Amos. But the book\nneither claims to be by Jonah, nor gives any proof of coming from an\neye-witness of the adventures which it describes,[1466] nor even from\na contemporary of the prophet. On the contrary, one verse implies that\nwhen it was written Niniveh had ceased to be a great city.[1467] Now\nNiniveh fell, and was practically destroyed, in 606 B.C.[1468] In all\nancient history there was no collapse of an imperial city more sudden\nor so complete.[1469] We must therefore date the Book of Jonah some\ntime after 606, when Niniveh\u2019s greatness had become what it was to the\nGreek writers, a matter of tradition.\n\nA late date is also proved by the language of the book. This not only\ncontains Aramaic elements which have been cited to support the argument\nfor a northern origin in the time of Jonah himself,[1470] but a number\nof words and grammatical constructions which we find in the Old\nTestament, some of them in the later and some only in the very latest\nwritings.[1471] Scarcely less decisive are a number of apparent\nquotations and echoes of passages in the Old Testament, mostly later\nthan the date of the historical Jonah, and some of them even later than\nthe Exile.[1472] If it could be proved that the Book of Jonah quotes\nfrom Joel, that would indeed set it down to a very late date\u2014probably\nabout 300 B.C., the period of the composition of Ezra-Nehemiah, with\nthe language of which its own shows most affinity.[1473] This would\nleave time for its reception into the Canon of the Prophets, which was\nclosed by 200 B.C.[1474] Had the book been later it would undoubtedly\nhave fallen, like Daniel, within the Hagiographa.\n\n\n 2. THE CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.\n\nNor does this book, written so many centuries after Jonah had passed\naway, claim to be real history. On the contrary, it offers to us all\nthe marks of the parable or allegory. We have, first of all, the\nresidence of Jonah for the conventional period of three days and three\nnights in the belly of the great fish, a story not only very\nextraordinary in itself and sufficient to provoke the suspicion of\nallegory (we need not stop to argue this), but apparently woven, as we\nshall see,[1475] from the materials of a myth well known to the\nHebrews. We have also the very general account of Niniveh\u2019s conversion,\nin which there is not even the attempt to describe any precise event.\nThe absence of precise data is indeed conspicuous throughout the book.\n\u201cThe author neglects a multitude of things, which he would have been\nobliged to mention had history been his principal aim. He says nothing\nof the sins of which Niniveh was guilty,[1476] nor of the journey of\nthe prophet to Niniveh, nor does he mention the place where he was cast\nout upon the land, nor the name of the Assyrian king. In any case, if\nthe narrative were intended to be historical, it would be incomplete by\nthe frequent fact, that circumstances which are necessary for the\nconnection of events are mentioned later than they happened, and only\nwhere attention has to be directed to them as having already\nhappened.\u201d[1477] We find, too, a number of trifling discrepancies, from\nwhich some critics[1478] have attempted to prove the presence of more\nthan one story in the composition of the book, but which are simply due\nto the license a writer allows himself when he is telling a tale and\nnot writing a history. Above all, there is the abrupt close to the\nstory at the very moment at which its moral is obvious.[1479] All these\nthings are symptoms of the parable\u2014so obvious and so natural, that we\nreally sin against the intention of the author, and the purpose of the\nSpirit which inspired him, when we wilfully interpret the book as real\nhistory.[1480]\n\n\n 3. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.\n\nThe general purpose of this parable is very clear. It is not, as some\nhave maintained,[1481] to explain why the judgments of God and the\npredictions of His prophets were not always fulfilled\u2014though this also\nbecomes clear by the way. The purpose of the parable, and it is patent\nfrom first to last, is to illustrate the mission of prophecy to the\nGentiles, God\u2019s care for them, and their susceptibility to His word.\nMore correctly, it is to enforce all this truth upon a prejudiced and\nthrice-reluctant mind.[1482]\n\nWhose was this reluctant mind? In Israel after the Exile there were\nmany different feelings with regard to the future and the great\nobstacle which heathendom interposed between Israel and the future.\nThere was the feeling of outraged justice, with the intense conviction\nthat Jehovah\u2019s kingdom could not be established save by the overthrow\nof the cruel kingdoms of this world. We have seen that conviction\nexpressed in the Book of Obadiah. But the nation, which read and\ncherished the visions of the Great Seer of the Exile,[1483] could not\nhelp producing among her sons men with hopes about the heathen of a\nvery different kind\u2014men who felt that Israel\u2019s mission to the world was\nnot one of war, but of service in those high truths of God and of His\nGrace which had been committed to herself. Between the two parties it\nis certain there was much polemic, and we find this still bitter in the\ntime of our Lord. And some critics think that while Esther, Obadiah and\nother writings of the centuries after the Return represent the one side\nof this polemic, which demanded the overthrow of the heathen, the Book\nof Jonah represents the other side, and in the vexed and reluctant\nprophet pictures such Jews as were willing to proclaim the destruction\nof the enemies of Israel, and yet like Jonah were not without the\nlurking fear that God would disappoint their predictions and in His\npatience leave the heathen room for repentance.[1484] Their dogmatism\ncould not resist the impression of how long God had actually spared the\noppressors of His people, and the author of the Book of Jonah cunningly\nsought these joints in their armour to insinuate the points of his\ndoctrine of God\u2019s real will for nations beyond the covenant. This is\ningenious and plausible. But in spite of the cleverness with which it\nhas been argued that the details of the story of Jonah are adapted to\nthe temper of the Jewish party who desired only vengeance on the\nheathen, it is not at all necessary to suppose that the book was the\nproduce of mere polemic. The book is too simple and too grand for that.\nAnd therefore those appear more right who conceive that the writer had\nin view, not a Jewish party, but Israel as a whole in their national\nreluctance to fulfil their Divine mission to the world.[1485] Of them\nGod had already said: _Who is blind but My servant, or deaf as My\nmessenger whom I have sent?... Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to\nthe robbers? Did not Jehovah, He against whom we have sinned?\u2014for they\nwould not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to His\nlaw._[1486] Of such a people Jonah is the type. Like them he flees from\nthe duty God has laid upon him. Like them he is, beyond his own land,\ncast for a set period into a living death, and like them rescued again\nonly to exhibit once more upon his return an ill-will to believe that\nGod had any fate for the heathen except destruction. According to this\ntheory, then, Jonah\u2019s disappearance in the sea and the great fish, and\nhis subsequent ejection upon dry land, symbolise the Exile of Israel\nand their restoration to Palestine.\n\nIn proof of this view it has been pointed out that, while the prophets\nfrequently represent the heathen tyrants of Israel as the sea or the\nsea-monster, one of them has actually described the nation\u2019s exile as\nits swallowing by a monster, whom God forces at last to disgorge his\nliving prey.[1487] The full illustration of this will be given in\nChapter XXXVI. on \u201cThe Great Fish and What it Means.\u201d Here it is only\nnecessary to mention that the metaphor was borrowed, not, as has been\nalleged by many, from some Greek, or other foreign, myth, which, like\nthat of Perseus and Andromeda, had its scene in the neighbourhood of\nJoppa, but from a Semitic mythology which was well known to the\nHebrews, and the materials of which were employed very frequently by\nother prophets and poets of the Old Testament.[1488]\n\nWhy, of all prophets, Jonah should have been selected as the type of\nIsrael, is a question hard but perhaps not impossible to answer. In\nhistory Jonah appears only as concerned with Israel\u2019s reconquest of her\nlands from the heathen. Did the author of the book say: I will take\nsuch a man, one to whom tradition attributes no outlook beyond Israel\u2019s\nown territories, for none could be so typical of Israel, narrow,\nselfish and with no love for the world beyond herself? Or did the\nauthor know some story about a journey of Jonah to Niniveh, or at least\nsome discourse by Jonah against the great city? Elijah went to Sarepta,\nElisha took God\u2019s word to Damascus: may there not have been, though we\nare ignorant of it, some connection between Niniveh and the labours of\nElisha\u2019s successor? Thirty years after Jonah appeared, Amos proclaimed\nthe judgment of Jehovah upon foreign nations, with the destruction of\ntheir capitals; about the year 755 he clearly enforced, as equal with\nIsrael\u2019s own, the moral responsibility of the heathen to the God of\nrighteousness. May not Jonah, almost the contemporary of Amos, have\ndenounced Niniveh in the same way? Would not some tradition of this\nserve as the nucleus of history, round which our author built his\nallegory? It is possible that Jonah proclaimed doom upon Niniveh; yet\nthose who are familiar with the prophesying of Amos, Hosea, and, in his\nyounger days, Isaiah, will deem it hardly probable. For why do all\nthese prophets exhibit such reserve in even naming Assyria, if Israel\nhad already through Jonah entered into such articulate relations with\nNiniveh? We must, therefore, admit our ignorance of the reasons which\nled our author to choose Jonah as a type of Israel. We can only\nconjecture that it may have been because Jonah was a prophet, whom\nhistory identified only with Israel\u2019s narrower interests. If, during\nsubsequent centuries, a tradition had risen of Jonah\u2019s journey to\nNiniveh or of his discourse against her, such a tradition has\nprobability against it.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA more definite origin for the book than any yet given has been\nsuggested by Professor Budde.[1489] The Second Book of Chronicles\nrefers to a _Midrash of the Book of the Kings_[1490] for further\nparticulars concerning King Joash. A _Midrash_[1491] was the expansion,\nfor doctrinal or homiletic purposes, of a passage of Scripture, and\nvery frequently took the form, so dear to Orientals, of parable or\ninvented story about the subject of the text. We have examples of\nMidrashim among the Apocrypha, in the Books of Tobit and Susannah and\nin the Prayer of Manasseh, the same as is probably referred to by the\nChronicler.[1492] That the Chronicler himself used the _Midrash of the\nBook of the Kings_ as material for his own book is obvious from the\nform of the latter and its adaptation of the historical narratives of\nthe Book of Kings.[1493] The Book of Daniel may also be reckoned among\nthe Midrashim, and Budde now proposes to add to their number the Book\nof Jonah. It may be doubted whether this distinguished critic is right\nin supposing that the book formed the Midrash to 2 Kings xiv. 25 ff.\n(the author being desirous to add to the expression there of Jehovah\u2019s\npity upon Israel some expression of His pity upon the heathen), or that\nit was extracted just as it stands, in proof of which Budde points to\nits abrupt beginning and end. We have seen another reason for the\nlatter;[1494] and it is very improbable that the Midrashim, so largely\nthe basis of the Books of Chronicles, shared that spirit of\nuniversalism which inspires the Book of Jonah.[1495] But we may well\nbelieve that it was in some Midrash of the Book of Kings that the\nauthor of the Book of Jonah found the basis of the latter part of his\nimmortal work, which too clearly reflects the fortunes and conduct of\nall Israel to have been wholly drawn from a Midrash upon the story of\nthe individual prophet Jonah.\n\n\n 4. OUR LORD\u2019S USE OF THE BOOK.\n\nWe have seen, then, that the Book of Jonah is not actual history, but\nthe enforcement of a profound religious truth nearer to the level of\nthe New Testament than anything else in the Old, and cast in the form\nof Christ\u2019s own parables. The full proof of this can be made clear\nonly by the detailed exposition of the book. There is, however, one\nother question, which is relevant to the argument. Christ Himself has\nemployed the story of Jonah. Does His use of it involve His authority\nfor the opinion that it is a story of real facts?\n\nTwo passages of the Gospels contain the words of our Lord upon Jonah:\nMatt. xii. 39, 41, and Luke xi. 29, 30.[1496] _A generation, wicked and\nadulterous, seeketh a sign, and sign shall not be given it, save the\nsign of the prophet Jonah.... The men of Niniveh shall stand up in the\nJudgment with this generation, and condemn it, for they repented at the\npreaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. This\ngeneration is an evil generation: it seeketh a sign; and sign shall not\nbe given it, except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the\nNinivites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this generation._\n\nThese words, of course, are compatible with the opinion that the Book\nof Jonah is a record of real fact. The only question is, are they also\ncompatible with the opinion that the Book of Jonah is a parable? Many\nsay No; and they allege that those of us who hold this opinion are\ndenying, or at least ignoring, the testimony of our Lord; or that we\nare taking away the whole force of the parallel which He drew. This is\na question of interpretation, not of faith. We do not believe that our\nLord had any thought of confirming or not confirming the historic\ncharacter of the story. His purpose was purely one of exhortation, and\nwe feel the grounds of that exhortation to be just as strong, when we\nhave proven the Book of Jonah to be a parable. Christ is using an\nillustration: it surely matters not whether that illustration be drawn\nfrom the realms of fact or of poetry. Again and again in their\ndiscourses to the people do men use illustrations and enforcements\ndrawn from traditions of the past. Do we, even when the historical\nvalue of these traditions is _very_ ambiguous, give a single thought to\nthe question of their historical character? We never think of it. It is\nenough for us that the tradition is popularly accepted and familiar.\nAnd we cannot deny to our Lord that which we claim for ourselves.[1497]\nEven conservative writers admit this. In his recent Introduction to\nJonah Orelli says expressly: \u201cIt is not, indeed, proved with conclusive\nnecessity that, if the resurrection of Jesus was a physical fact,\nJonah\u2019s abode in the fish\u2019s belly must also be just as historical.\u201d[1498]\n\nUpon the general question of our Lord\u2019s authority in matters of\ncriticism, His own words with regard to personal questions may be\nappositely quoted: _Man, who made Me a judge or divider over you? I\nam come not to judge ... but to save._ Such matters our Lord surely\nleaves to ourselves, and we have to decide them by our reason, our\ncommon-sense and our loyalty to truth\u2014of all of which He Himself is\nthe creator, and of which we shall have to render to Him an account\nat the last. Let us remember this, and we shall use them with equal\nliberty and reverence. _Bringing every thought into subjection to\nChrist_ is surely just using our knowledge, our reason, and every other\nintellectual gift which He has given us, with the accuracy and the\ncourage of His own Spirit.\n\n\n 5. THE UNITY OF THE BOOK.\n\nThe next question is that of the Unity of the Book. Several attempts\nhave been made to prove from discrepancies, some real and some alleged,\nthat the book is a compilation of stories from several different hands.\nBut these essays are too artificial to have obtained any adherence from\ncritics; and the few real discrepancies of narrative from which they\nstart are due, as we have seen, rather to the license of a writer of\nparable than to any difference of authorship.[1499]\n\nIn the question of the Unity of the Book, the Prayer or Psalm in chap.\nii. offers a problem of its own, consisting as it does almost entirely\nof passages parallel to others in the Psalter. Besides a number of\nreligious phrases, which are too general for us to say that one prayer\nhas borrowed them from another,[1500] there are several unmistakeable\nrepetitions of the Psalms.[1501]\n\nAnd yet the Psalm of Jonah has strong features, which, so far as we\nknow, are original to it. The horror of the great deep has nowhere in\nthe Old Testament been described with such power or with such\nconciseness. So far, then, the Psalm is not a mere string of\nquotations, but a living unity. Did the author of the book himself\ninsert it where it stands? Against this it has been urged that the\nPsalm is not the prayer of a man inside a fish, but of one who on dry\nland celebrates a deliverance from drowning, and that if the author of\nthe narrative himself had inserted it, he would rather have done so\nafter ver. 11, which records the prophet\u2019s escape from the fish.[1502]\nAnd a usual theory of the origin of the Psalm is that a later editor,\nhaving found the Psalm ready-made and in a collection where it was\nperhaps attributed to Jonah,[1503] inserted it after ver. 2, which\nrecords that Jonah did pray from the belly of the fish, and inserted it\nthere the more readily, because it seemed right for a book which had\nfound its place among the Twelve Prophets to contribute, as all the\nothers did, some actual discourse of the prophet whose name it\nbore.[1504] This, however, is not probable. Whether the original author\nfound the Psalm ready to his hand or made it, there is a great deal to\nbe said for the opinion of the earlier critics,[1505] that he himself\ninserted it, and just where it now stands. For, from the standpoint of\nthe writer, Jonah was already saved, when he was taken up by the\nfish\u2014saved from the deep into which he had been cast by the sailors,\nand the dangers of which the Psalm so vividly describes. However\nimpossible it be for us to conceive of the compilation of a Psalm (even\nthough full of quotations) by a man in Jonah\u2019s position,[1506] it was\nconsistent with the standpoint of a writer who had just affirmed that\nthe fish was expressly _appointed by Jehovah_, in order to save his\npenitent servant from the sea. To argue that the Psalm is an intrusion\nis therefore not only unnecessary, but it betrays failure to appreciate\nthe standpoint of the writer. Given the fish and the Divine purpose of\nthe fish, the Psalm is intelligible and appears at its proper place. It\nwere more reasonable indeed to argue that the fish itself is an\ninsertion. Besides, as we shall see, the spirit of the Psalm is\nnational; in conformity with the truth underlying the book, it is a\nPsalm of Israel as a whole.\n\nIf this be correct, we have the Book of Jonah as it came from the hands\nof its author. The text is in wonderfully good condition, due to the\nease of the narrative and its late date. The Greek version exhibits the\nusual proportion of clerical errors and mistranslations,[1507]\nomissions[1508] and amplifications,[1509] with some variant\nreadings[1510] and other changes that will be noted in the verses\nthemselves.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1458] Unless the Psalm were counted as such. See below, p. 511.\n\n[1459] _Minus_ Ruth of course.\n\n[1460] Cf. with Jonah i. 1, \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05d9, Josh. i. 1, 1 Sam. i. 1, 2 Sam. i.\n1. The corrupt state of the text of Ezek. i. 1 does not permit us to\nadduce it also as a parallel.\n\n[1461] See below, p. 496.\n\n[1462] See above, Vol. I., p. 236.\n\n[1463] Acts xi. 8.\n\n[1464] Cf. Gittah-hepher, Josh. xix. 13, by some held to be El Meshhed,\nthree miles north-east of Nazareth. The tomb of Jonah is pointed out\nthere.\n\n[1465] 2 Kings xiv. 25.\n\n[1466] Cf. Kuenen, _Einl._, II. 417, 418.\n\n[1467] iii. 3: \u05d4\u05d9\u05ea\u05d4, _was_.\n\n[1468] See above, pp. 21 ff., 96 ff.\n\n[1469] Cf. George Smith, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 94; Sayce, _Ancient\nEmpires of the East_, p. 141. Cf. previous note.\n\n[1470] As, _e.g._, by Volck, article \u201cJona\u201d in Herzog\u2019s _Real.\nEncycl._\u00b2: the use of \u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05dc for \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8, as, _e.g._, in the very early\nSong of Deborah. But the same occurs in many late passages: Eccles. i.\n7, 11, ii. 21, 22, etc.; Psalms cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxv. 2, 8, cxxxvii.\n8, cxlvi. 3.\n\n[1471] A. Grammatical constructions:\u2014i. 7, \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05dc\u05b0\u05bc\u05de\u05b4\u05d9;\u200e 12, \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05dc\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9: that \u05d1\u05e9\u05dc\nhas not altogether displaced \u05d1\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8\u05dc K\u00f6nig (_Einl._, 378) thinks a proof\nof the date of Jonah in the early Aramaic period. iv. 6, the use of \u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\nfor the accusative, cf. Jer. xl. 2, Ezra viii. 24: seldom in earlier\nHebrew, 1 Sam. xxiii. 10, 2 Sam. iii. 30, especially when the object\nstands before the verb, Isa. xi. 9 (this may be late), 1 Sam. xxii. 7,\nJob v. 2; but continually in Aramaic, Dan. ii. 10, 12, 14, 24, etc. The\nfirst personal pronoun \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 (five times) occurs oftener than \u05d0\u05e0\u05db\u05d9\n(twice), just as in all exilic and post-exilic writings. The numerals\nii. 1, iii. 3, precede the noun, as in earlier Hebrew.\n\nB. Words:\u2014\u05de\u05e0\u05d4 in Pi. is a favourite term of our author, ii. 1, iv.\n6, 8; is elsewhere in O.T. Hebrew found only in Dan. i. 5, 10, 18, 1\nChron. ix. 29, Psalm lxi. 8; but in O.T. Aramaic \u05de\u05e0\u05d0 Pi. \u05de\u05e0\u05bc\u05d9 occurs\nin Ezra vii. 25, Dan. ii. 24, 49, iii. 12, etc. \u05e1\u05e4\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4, i. 5, is not\nelsewhere found in O.T., but is common in later Hebrew and in Aramaic.\n\u05d4\u05ea\u05e2\u05e9\u05ea, i. 6, _to think_, for the Heb. \u05d7\u05e9\u05d1, cf. Psalm cxlvi. 4, but\nAram. cf. Dan. vi. 4 and Targums. \u05d8\u05e2\u05dd in the sense _to order or\ncommand_, iii. 7, is found elsewhere in the O.T. only in the Aramaic\npassages Dan. iii. 10, Ezra vi. 1, etc. \u05e8\u05d1\u05bc\u05d5, iv. 11, for the earlier\n\u05e8\u05d1\u05d1\u05d4 occurs only in later Hebrew, Ezra ii. 64, Neh. vii. 66, 72, 1\nChron. xxix. 7 (Hosea viii. 12, Kethibh is suspected). \u05e9\u05ea\u05e7, i. 11, 12,\noccurs only in Psalm cvii. 30, Prov. xxvi. 20. \u05e2\u05de\u05dc, iv. 10, instead of\nthe usual \u05d9\u05d2\u05e2. The expression _God of Heaven_, i. 9, occurs only in 2\nChron. xxxvi. 23, Psalm cxxxvi. 26, Dan. ii. 18, 19, 44, and frequently\nin Ezra and Nehemiah.\n\n[1472] In chap. iv. there are undoubted echoes of the story of Elijah\u2019s\ndepression in 1 Kings xix., though the alleged parallel between Jonah\u2019s\ntree (iv. 8) and Elijah\u2019s broom-bush seems to me forced, iv. 9 has been\nthought, though not conclusively, to depend on Gen. iv. 6, and the\nappearance of \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd has been referred to its frequent use in Gen.\nii. f. More important are the parallels with Joel: iii. 9 with Joel ii.\n14_a_, and the attributes of God in iv. 2 with Joel ii. 13. But which\nof the two is the original?\n\n[1473] Kleinert assigns the book to the Exile; Ewald to the fifth or\nsixth century; Driver to the fifth century (_Introd._^6, 301); Orelli\nto the last Chaldean or first Persian age; Vatke to the third century.\nThese assign generally to after the Exile: Cheyne (_Theol. Rev._, XIV.,\np. 218: cf. art. \u201cJonah\u201d in the _Encycl. Brit._), K\u00f6nig (_Einl._), Rob.\nSmith, Kuenen, Wildeboer, Budde, Cornill, Farrar, etc. Hitzig brings it\ndown as far as the Maccabean age, which is impossible if the prophetic\ncanon closed in 200 B.C., and seeks for its origin in Egypt, \u201cthat land\nof wonders,\u201d on account of its fabulous character, and because of the\ndescription of the east wind as \u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05d9\u05ea (iv. 8), and the name of the\ngourd, \u05e7\u05d9\u05e7\u05d9\u05d5\u05df, Egyptian _kiki_. But such a wind and such a plant were\nfound outside Egypt as well. Nowack dates the book after Joel.\n\n[1474] See above, Vol. I., p. 5.\n\n[1475] Below, pp. 523 ff.\n\n[1476] Contrast the treatment of foreign states by Elisha, Amos and\nIsaiah, etc.\n\n[1477] Abridged from pp. 3 and 4 of Kleinert\u2019s Introduction to the Book\nof Jonah in Lange\u2019s Series of Commentaries. Eng. ed., Vol. XVI.\n\n[1478] K\u00f6hler, _Theol. Rev._, Vol. XVI.; B\u00f6hme, _Z.A.T.W._, 1887, pp.\n224 ff.\n\n[1479] Indeed throughout the book the truths it enforces are always\nmore pushed to the front than the facts.\n\n[1480] Nearly all the critics who accept the late date of the book\ninterpret it as parabolic. See also a powerful article by the late Dr.\nDale in the _Expositor_, Fourth Series, Vol. VI., July 1892, pp. 1 ff.\nCf., too, C. H. H. Wright, _Biblical Essays_ (1886), pp. 34-98.\n\n[1481] Marck (quoted by Kleinert) said: \u201cScriptum est magna parte\nhistoricum sed ita ut in historia ipsa lateat maximi vaticinii\nmysterium, atque ipse fatis suis, non minus quam effatis vatem se verum\ndemonstret.\u201d Hitzig curiously thinks that this is the reason why it\nhas been placed in the Canon of the Prophets next to the unfulfilled\nprophecy of God against Edom. But by the date which Hitzig assigns\nto the book the prophecy against Edom was at least in a fair way to\nfulfilment. Riehm (_Theol. Stud. u. Krit._, 1862, pp. 413 f.): \u201cThe\npractical intention of the book is to afford instruction concerning\nthe proper attitude to prophetic warnings\u201d; these, though genuine\nwords of God, may be averted by repentance. Volck (art. \u201cJona\u201d in\nHerzog\u2019s _Real. Encycl._\u00b2) gives the following. Jonah\u2019s experience is\ncharacteristic of the whole prophetic profession. \u201cWe learn from it (1)\nthat the prophet must perform what God commands him, however unusual\nit appears; (2) that even death cannot nullify his calling; (3) that\nthe prophet has no right to the fulfilment of his prediction, but must\nplace it in God\u2019s hand.\u201d Vatke (_Einl._, 688) maintains that the book\nwas written in an apologetic interest, when Jews expounded the prophets\nand found this difficulty, that all their predictions had not been\nfulfilled. \u201cThe author obviously teaches: (1) since the prophet cannot\nwithdraw from the Divine commission, he is also not responsible for the\ncontents of his predictions; (2) the prophet often announces Divine\npurposes, which are not fulfilled, because God in His mercy takes back\nthe threat, when repentance follows; (3) the honour of a prophet is\nnot hurt when a threat is not fulfilled, and the inspiration remains\nunquestioned, although many predictions are not carried out.\u201d\n\nTo all of which there is a conclusive answer, in the fact that, had the\nbook been meant to explain or justify unfulfilled prophecy, the author\nwould certainly not have chosen as an instance a judgment against\nNiniveh, because, by the time he wrote, all the early predictions of\nNiniveh\u2019s fall had been fulfilled, we might say, to the very letter.\n\n[1482] So even Kimchi; and in modern times De Wette, Delitzsch, Bleek,\nReuss, Cheyne, Wright, K\u00f6nig, Farrar, Orelli, etc. So virtually\nalso Nowack. Ewald\u2019s view is a little different. He thinks that the\nfundamental truth of the book is that \u201ctrue fear and repentance bring\nsalvation from Jehovah.\u201d\n\n[1483] Isa. xl. ff.\n\n[1484] So virtually Kuenen, _Einl._, II., p. 423; Smend, _Lehrbuch der\nA. T. Religionsgeschichte_, pp. 408 f., and Nowack.\n\n[1485] That the book is a historical allegory is a very old theory.\nHermann v. d. Hardt (_\u00c6nigmata Prisci Orbis_, 1723: cf. _Jonas in_\n_Carcharia, Israel in Carcathio_, 1718, quoted by Vatke, _Einl._, p.\n686) found in the book a political allegory of the history of Manasseh\nled into exile, and converted, while the last two chapters represent\nthe history of Josiah. That the book was symbolic in some way of the\nconduct and fortunes of Israel was a view familiar in Great Britain\nduring the first half of this century: see the Preface to the English\ntranslation of Calvin on Jonah (1847). Kleinert (in his commentary\non Jonah in Lange\u2019s Series, Vol. XVI. English translation, 1874) was\none of the first to expound with details the symbolising of Israel in\nthe prophet Jonah. Then came the article in the _Theol. Review_ (XIV.\n1877, pp. 214 ff.) by Cheyne, following Bloch\u2019s _Studien z. Gesch. der\nSammlung der althebr\u00e4ischen Litteratur_ (Breslau, 1876); but adding the\nexplanation of _the great fish_ from Hebrew mythology (see below). Von\nOrelli quotes Kleinert with approval in the main.\n\n[1486] Isa. xlii. 19-24.\n\n[1487] Jer. li. 34, 44 f.\n\n[1488] That the Book of Jonah employs mythical elements is an opinion\nthat has prevailed since the beginning of this century. But before\nSemitic mythology was so well known as it is now, these mythical\nelements were thought to have been derived from the Greek mythology.\nSo Gesenius, De Wette, and even Knobel, but see especially F. C. Baur\nin Ilgen\u2019s _Zeitschrift_ for 1837, p. 201. Kuenen (_Einl._, 424) and\nCheyne (_Theol. Rev._, XIV.) rightly deny traces of any Greek influence\non Jonah, and their denial is generally agreed in.\n\nKleinert (_op. cit._, p. 10) points to the proper source in the native\nmythology of the Hebrews: \u201cThe sea-monster is by no means an unusual\nphenomenon in prophetic typology. It is the secular power appointed by\nGod for the scourge of Israel and of the earth (Isa. xxvii. 1)\u201d; and\nCheyne (_Theol. Rev._, XIV., \u201cJonah: a Study in Jewish Folk-lore and\nReligion\u201d) points out how Jer. li. 34, 44 f., forms the connecting link\nbetween the story of Jonah and the popular mythology.\n\n[1489] _Z.A.T.W._, 1892, pp. 40 ff.\n\n[1490] 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.\n\n[1491] Cf. Driver, _Introduction_, I., p. 497.\n\n[1492] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18.\n\n[1493] See Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Church, pp. 140,\n154.\n\n[1494] See above, pp. 499 f.\n\n[1495] Cf. Smend, _A. T. Religionsgeschichte_, p. 409, n. 1.\n\n[1496] Matt. xii. 40\u2014_For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three\ndays and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of\nthe earth three days and three nights_\u2014is not repeated in Luke xi.\n29, 30, which confines the sign to the preaching of repentance, and\nis suspected as an intrusion both for this and other reasons, e.g.\nthat ver. 40 is superfluous and does not fit in with ver. 41, which\ngives the proper explanation of the sign; that Jonah, who came by his\nburial in the fish through neglect of his duty and not by martyrdom,\ncould not therefore in this respect be a type of our Lord. On the\nother hand, ver. 40 is not unlike another reference of our Lord to His\nresurrection, John ii. 19 ff. Yet, even if ver. 40 be genuine, the\nvagueness of the parallel drawn in it between Jonah and our Lord surely\nmakes for the opinion that in quoting Jonah our Lord was not concerned\nabout quoting facts, but simply gave an illustration from a well-known\ntale. Matt. xvi. 4, where the sign of Jonah is again mentioned, does\nnot explain the sign.\n\n[1497] Take a case. Suppose we tell slothful people that theirs will be\nthe fate of the man who buried his talent, is this to commit us to the\nbelief that the personages of Christ\u2019s parables actually existed? Or\ntake the homiletic use of Shakespeare\u2019s dramas\u2014\u201cas Macbeth did,\u201d or \u201cas\nHamlet said.\u201d Does it commit us to the historical reality of Macbeth\nor Hamlet? Any preacher among us would resent being bound by such an\ninference. And if we resent this for ourselves, how chary we should be\nabout seeking to bind our Lord by it.\n\n[1498] Eng. trans. of _The Twelve Minor Prophets_, p. 172. Consult also\nFarrar\u2019s judicious paragraphs on the subject: _Minor Prophets_, 234 f.\n\n[1499] The two attempts which have been made to divide the Book of\nJonah are those by K\u00f6hler in the _Theol. Rev._, XVI. 139 ff., and by\nB\u00f6hme in the _Z.A.T.W._, VII. 224 ff. K\u00f6hler first insists on traits\nof an earlier age (rude conception of God, no sharp boundary drawn\nbetween heathens and the Hebrews, etc.), and then finds traces of a\nlate revision: lacuna in i. 2; hesitation in iii. 1, in the giving of\nthe prophet\u2019s commission, which is not pure Hebrew; change of three\ndays to forty (cf. LXX.); mention of unnamed king and his edict, which\nis superfluous after the popular movement; beasts sharing in mourning;\nalso in i. 5, 8, 9, 14, ii. 2, \u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d2\u05b8\u05d4, iii. 9, iv. 1-4, as disturbing\ncontext; also the building of a booth is superfluous, and only invented\nto account for Jonah remaining forty days instead of the original\nthree; iv. 6, \u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea \u05e6\u05dc \u05e2\u05dc \u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5 for an original \u05dc\u05b0\u05d4\u05b7\u05bc\u05e6\u05b4\u05bc\u05dc \u05dc\u05d5\u05b9 = to\noffer him shade; 7, _the worm_, \u05ea\u05d5\u05dc\u05e2\u05ea, due to a copyist\u2019s change of\nthe following \u05d1\u05e2\u05dc\u05d5\u05ea. Withdrawing these, K\u00f6hler gets an account of the\nsparing of Niniveh on repentance following a sentence of doom, which,\nhe says, reflects the position of the city of God in Jeremiah\u2019s time,\nand was due to Jeremiah\u2019s opponents, who said in answer to his sentence\nof doom: If Niniveh could avert her fate, why not Jerusalem? B\u00f6hme\u2019s\nconclusion, starting from the alleged contradictions in the story, is\nthat no fewer than four hands have had to deal with it. A sufficient\nanswer is given by Kuenen (_Einl._, 426 ff.), who, after analysing the\ndissection, says that its \u201cimprobability is immediately evident.\u201d With\nregard to the inconsistencies which B\u00f6hme alleges to exist in chap.\niii. between ver. 5 and vv. 6-9, Kuenen remarks that \u201call that is\nneeded for their explanation is a little good-will\u201d\u2014a phrase applicable\nto many other difficulties raised with regard to other Old Testament\nbooks by critical attempts even more rational than those of B\u00f6hme.\nCornill characterises B\u00f6hme\u2019s hypothesis as absurd.\n\n[1500] _To Thy holy temple_, vv. 5 and 8: cf. Psalm v. 8, etc. _The\nwaters have come round me to my very soul_, ver. 6: cf. Psalm lxix. 2.\n_And Thou broughtest up my life_, ver. 7: cf. Psalm xxx. 4. _When my\nsoul fainted upon me_, ver. 8: cf. Psalm cxlii. 4, etc. _With the voice\nof thanksgiving_, ver. 10: cf. Psalm xlii. 5. The reff. are to the Heb.\ntext.\n\n[1501] Cf. ver. 3 with Psalm xviii. 7; ver. 4 with Psalm xlii. 8; ver.\n5 with Psalm xxxi. 23; ver. 9 with Psalm xxxi. 7, and ver. 10 with\nPsalm l. 14.\n\n[1502] Budde, as above, p. 42.\n\n[1503] De Wette, Knobel, Kuenen.\n\n[1504] Budde.\n\n[1505] _E.g._ Hitzig.\n\n[1506] Luther says of Jonah\u2019s prayer, that \u201che did not speak with these\nexact words in the belly of the fish, nor placed them so orderly, but\nhe shows how he took courage, and what sort of thoughts his heart had,\nwhen he stood in such a battle with death.\u201d We recognise in this Psalm\n\u201cthe recollection of the confidence with which Jonah hoped towards God,\nthat since he had been rescued in so wonderful a way from death in the\nwaves, He would also bring him out of the night of his grave into the\nlight of day.\u201d\n\n[1507] ii. 5, B has \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03bd for \u03bd\u03b1\u03cc\u03bd; i. 9, for \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9 it reads \u05e2\u05d1\u05d3\u05d9, and\ntakes the \u05d9 to be abbreviation for \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4; ii. 7, for \u05d1\u05e2\u05d3\u05d9 it reads\n\u05d1\u05e2\u05dc\u05d9 and translates \u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9; iv. 11, for \u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05be\u05d1\u05d4\u05bc it reads \u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05d1\u05d5, and\ntranslates \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9.\n\n[1508] i. 4, \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc\u05d4, perhaps rightly omitted before following \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc;\ni. 8, B omits the clause \u05d1\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 to \u05dc\u05e0\u05d5, probably rightly, for it is\nneedless, though supplied by Codd. A, Q; iii. 9, one verb, \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\nfor \u05d9\u05e9\u05d5\u05d1 \u05d5\u05e0\u05d7\u05dd, probably correctly, see below.\n\n[1509] i. 2, \u1f21 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c5\u03b3\u1f74 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 for \u05e8\u05e2\u05ea\u05dd; ii. 3, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 after\n\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4; ii. 10, in obedience to another reading; iii. 2, \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f14\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd\nafter \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0\u05d9\u05d4; iii. 8, \u05dc\u05d0\u05de\u05e8.\n\n[1510] iii. 4, 8.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXV\n\n _THE GREAT REFUSAL_\n\n JONAH i\n\n\nWe have now laid clear the lines upon which the Book of Jonah was\ncomposed. Its purpose is to illustrate God\u2019s grace to the heathen in\nface of His people\u2019s refusal to fulfil their mission to them. The\nauthor was led to achieve this purpose by a parable, through which the\nprophet Jonah moves as the symbol of his recusant, exiled, redeemed\nand still hardened people. It is the Drama of Israel\u2019s career, as the\nServant of God, in the most pathetic moments of that career. A nation\nis stumbling on the highest road nation was ever called to tread.\n\n _Who is blind but My servant,\n Or deaf as My messenger whom I have sent?_\n\nHe that would read this Drama aright must remember what lies behind the\nGreat Refusal which forms its tragedy. The cause of Israel\u2019s recusancy\nwas not only wilfulness or cowardly sloth, but the horror of a whole\nworld given over to idolatry, the paralysing sense of its irresistible\nforce, of its cruel persecutions endured for centuries, and of the long\nfamine of Heaven\u2019s justice. These it was which had filled Israel\u2019s\neyes too full of fever to see her duty. Only when we feel, as the\nwriter himself felt, all this tragic background to his story are we\nable to appreciate the exquisite gleams which he flashes across it:\nthe generous magnanimity of the heathen sailors, the repentance of\nthe heathen city, and, lighting from above, God\u2019s pity upon the dumb\nheathen multitudes.\n\nThe parable or drama divides itself into three parts: The Prophet\u2019s\nFlight and Turning (chap. i.); The Great Fish and What it Means (chap.\nii.); and The Repentance of the City (chaps. iii. and iv.).\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe chief figure of the story is Jonah, son of Amittai, from\nGath-hepher in Galilee, a prophet identified with that turn in Israel\u2019s\nfortunes, by which she began to defeat her Syrian oppressors, and win\nback from them her own territories\u2014a prophet, therefore, of revenge,\nand from the most bitter of the heathen wars. _And the word of Jehovah\ncame to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Up, go to Niniveh, the Great\nCity, and cry out against her, for her evil is come up before Me._ But\n_he arose to flee_. It was not the length of the road, nor the danger\nof declaring Niniveh\u2019s sin to her face, which turned him, but the\ninstinct that God intended by him something else than Niniveh\u2019s\ndestruction; and this instinct sprang from his knowledge of God\nHimself. _Ah now, Jehovah, was not my word, while I was yet upon mine\nown soil, at the time I made ready to flee to Tarshish, this\u2014that I\nknew that Thou art a God gracious and tender and long-suffering,\nplenteous in love and relenting of evil?_[1511] Jonah interpreted the\nWord which came to him by the Character which he knew to be behind the\nWord. This is a significant hint upon the method of revelation.\n\nIt would be rash to say that, in imputing even to the historical Jonah\nthe fear of God\u2019s grace upon the heathen, our author were guilty of an\nanachronism.[1512] We have to do, however, with a greater than\nJonah\u2014the nation herself. Though perhaps Israel little reflected upon\nit, the instinct can never have been far away that some day the grace\nof Jehovah might reach the heathen too. Such an instinct, of course,\nmust have been almost stifled by hatred born of heathen oppression, as\nwell as by the intellectual scorn which Israel came to feel for heathen\nidolatries. But we may believe that it haunted even those dark periods\nin which revenge upon the Gentiles seemed most just, and their\ndestruction the only means of establishing God\u2019s kingdom in the world.\nWe know that it moved uneasily even beneath the rigour of Jewish\nlegalism. For its secret was that faith in the essential grace of God,\nwhich Israel gained very early and never lost, and which was the spring\nof every new conviction and every reform in her wonderful development.\nWith a subtle appreciation of all this, our author imputes the instinct\nto Jonah from the outset. Jonah\u2019s fear, that after all the heathen may\nbe spared, reflects the restless apprehension even of the most\nexclusive of his people\u2014an apprehension which by the time our book was\nwritten seemed to be still more justified by God\u2019s long delay of doom\nupon the tyrants whom He had promised to overthrow.\n\nBut to the natural man in Israel the possibility of the heathen\u2019s\nrepentance was still so abhorrent, that he turned his back upon it.\n_Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the face of Jehovah._ In spite of\nrecent arguments to the contrary, the most probable location of\nTarshish is the generally accepted one, that it was a Ph\u0153nician colony\nat the other end of the Mediterranean. In any case it was far from the\nHoly Land; and by going there the prophet would put the sea between\nhimself and his God. To the Hebrew imagination there could not be a\nflight more remote. Israel was essentially an inland people. They had\ncome up out of the desert, and they had practically never yet touched\nthe Mediterranean. They lived within sight of it, but from ten to\ntwenty miles of foreign soil intervened between their mountains and its\nstormy coast. The Jews had no traffic upon the sea, nor (but for one\nsublime instance[1513] to the contrary) had their poets ever employed\nit except as a symbol of arrogance and restless rebellion against the\nwill of God.[1514] It was all this popular feeling of the distance and\nstrangeness of the sea which made our author choose it as the scene of\nthe prophet\u2019s flight from the face of Israel\u2019s God. Jonah had to pass,\ntoo, through a foreign land to get to the coast: upon the sea he would\nonly be among heathen. This was to be part of his conversion. _He went\ndown to Yapho, and found a ship going to Tarshish, and paid the fare\nthereof, and embarked on her to get away with_ her crew[1515] _to\nTarshish\u2014away from the face of Jehovah_.\n\nThe scenes which follow are very vivid: the sudden wind sweeping down\nfrom the very hills on which Jonah believed he had left his God; the\ntempest; the behaviour of the ship, so alive with effort that the story\nattributes to her the feelings of a living thing\u2014_she thought she must\nbe broken_; the despair of the mariners, driven from the unity of their\ncommon task to the hopeless diversity of their idolatry\u2014_they cried\nevery man unto his own god_; the jettisoning of the tackle of the ship\nto lighten her (as we should say, they let the masts go by the board);\nthe worn-out prophet in the hull of the ship, sleeping like a stowaway;\nthe group gathered on the heaving deck to cast the lot; the passenger\u2019s\nconfession, and the new fear which fell upon the sailors from it; the\nreverence with which these rude men ask the advice of him, in whose\nguilt they feel not the offence to themselves, but the sacredness to\nGod; the awakening of the prophet\u2019s better self by their generous\ndeference to him; how he counsels to them his own sacrifice; their\nreluctance to yield to this, and their return to the oars with\nincreased perseverance for his sake. But neither their generosity nor\ntheir efforts avail. The prophet again offers himself, and as their\nsacrifice he is thrown into the sea.\n\n_And Jehovah cast a wind[1516] on the sea, and there was a great\ntempest,[1517] and the ship threatened[1518] to break up. And the\nsailors were afraid, and cried every man unto his own god; and they\ncast the tackle of the ship into the sea, to lighten it from upon them.\nBut Jonah had gone down to the bottom of the ship and lay fast asleep.\nAnd the captain of the ship[1519] came to him, and said to him, What\nart thou doing asleep? Up, call on thy God; peradventure the God will\nbe gracious to us, that we perish not. And they said every man to his\nneighbour, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose sake\nis this evil_ come _upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on\nJonah. And they said to him, Tell us now,[1520] what is thy business,\nand whence comest thou? what is thy land, and from what people art\nthou? And he said to them, A Hebrew am I, and a worshipper of the God\nof Heaven,[1521] who made the sea and the dry land. And the men feared\ngreatly, and said to him, What is this thou hast done? (for they knew\nhe was fleeing from the face of Jehovah, because he had told them). And\nthey said to him, What are we to do to thee that the sea cease_ raging\n_against us? For the sea was surging higher and higher. And he said,\nTake me and throw me into the sea; so shall the sea cease_ raging\n_against you: for I am sure that it is on my account that this great\ntempest is_ risen _upon you. And the men laboured[1522] with the oars\nto bring the ship to land, and they could not, for the sea grew more\nand more stormy against them. So they called on Jehovah and said,\nJehovah, let us not perish, we pray Thee, for the life of this man,\nneither bring innocent blood upon us: for Thou art Jehovah, Thou doest\nas Thou pleasest. Then they took up Jonah and cast him into the sea,\nand the sea stilled from its raging. But the men were in great awe of\nJehovah, and sacrificed to Him and vowed vows._\n\nHow very real it is and how very noble! We see the storm, and then we\nforget the storm in the joy of that generous contest between heathen\nand Hebrew. But the glory of the passage is the change in Jonah\nhimself. It has been called his punishment and the conversion of the\nheathen. Rather it is his own conversion. He meets again not only God,\nbut the truth from which he fled. He not only meets that truth, but he\noffers his life for it.\n\nThe art is consummate. The writer will first reduce the prophet and the\nheathen whom he abhors to the elements of their common humanity. As men\nhave sometimes seen upon a mass of wreckage or on an ice-floe a number\nof wild animals, by nature foes to each other, reduced to peace through\ntheir common danger, so we descry the prophet and his natural enemies\nupon the strained and breaking ship. In the midst of the storm they are\nequally helpless, and they cast for all the lot which has no respect\nof persons. But from this the story passes quickly, to show how Jonah\nfeels not only the human kinship of these heathen with himself, but\ntheir susceptibility to the knowledge of his God. They pray to Jehovah\nas the God of the sea and the dry land; while we may be sure that the\nprophet\u2019s confession, and the story of his own relation to that God,\nforms as powerful an exhortation to repentance as any he could have\npreached in Niniveh. At least it produces the effects which he has\ndreaded. In these sailors he sees heathen turned to the fear of the\nLord. All that he has fled to avoid happens there before his eyes and\nthrough his own mediation.\n\nThe climax is reached, however, neither when Jonah feels his common\nhumanity with the heathen nor when he discovers their awe of his God,\nbut when in order to secure for them God\u2019s sparing mercies he offers\nhis own life instead. _Take me up and cast me into the sea; so shall\nthe sea cease from_ raging _against you._ After their pity for him\nhas wrestled for a time with his honest entreaties, he becomes their\nsacrifice.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn all this story perhaps the most instructive passages are those which\nlay bare to us the method of God\u2019s revelation. When we were children\nthis was shown to us in pictures of angels bending from heaven to guide\nIsaiah\u2019s pen, or to cry Jonah\u2019s commission to him through a trumpet.\nAnd when we grew older, although we learned to dispense with that\nmachinery, yet its infection remained, and our conception of the whole\nprocess was mechanical still. We thought of the prophets as of another\norder of things; we released them from our own laws of life and\nthought, and we paid the penalty by losing all interest in them. But\nthe prophets were human, and their inspiration came through experience.\nThe source of it, as this story shows, was God. Partly from His\nguidance of their nation, partly through close communion with Himself,\nthey received new convictions of His character. Yet they did not\nreceive these mechanically. They spake neither at the bidding of\nangels, nor like heathen prophets in trance or ecstasy, but as _they\nwere moved by the Holy Ghost_. And the Spirit worked upon them first as\nthe influence of God\u2019s character,[1523] and second through the\nexperience of life. God and life\u2014these are all the postulates for\nrevelation.\n\nAt first Jonah fled from the truth, at last he laid down his life for\nit. So God still forces us to the acceptance of new light and the\nperformance of strange duties. Men turn from these, because of sloth\nor prejudice, but in the end they have to face them, and then at what\na cost! In youth they shirk a self-denial to which in some storm of\nlater life they have to bend with heavier, and often hopeless, hearts.\nFor their narrow prejudices and refusals, God punishes them by bringing\nthem into pain that stings, or into responsibility for others that\nshames, these out of them. The drama of life is thus intensified in\ninterest and beauty; characters emerge heroic and sublime.\n\n \u201cBut, oh the labour,\n O prince, the pain!\u201d\n\nSometimes the neglected duty is at last achieved only at the cost of\na man\u2019s breath; and the truth, which might have been the bride of his\nyouth and his comrade through a long life, is recognised by him only in\nthe features of Death.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1511] iv. 2.\n\n[1512] For the grace of God had been the most formative influence in\nthe early religion of Israel (see Vol. I., p. 19), and Amos, only\nthirty years after Jonah, emphasised the moral equality of Israel and\nthe Gentiles before the one God of righteousness. Given these two\npremisses of God\u2019s essential grace and the moral responsibility of the\nheathen to Him, and the conclusion could never have been far away that\nin the end His essential grace must reach the heathen too. Indeed in\nsayings not later than the eighth century it is foretold that Israel\nshall become a blessing to the whole world. Our author, then, may have\nbeen guilty of no anachronism in imputing such a foreboding to Jonah.\n\n[1513] Second Isaiah. See chap. lx.\n\n[1514] See the author\u2019s _Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land_, pp. 131-134.\n\n[1515] Heb. _them_.\n\n[1516] So LXX.: Heb. _a great wind_.\n\n[1517] Heb. _on the sea_.\n\n[1518] Lit. _reckoned_ or _thought_.\n\n[1519] Heb. _ropes_.\n\n[1520] The words _for whose sake is this evil_ come _upon us_ do not\noccur in LXX. and are unnecessary.\n\n[1521] Wellhausen suspects this form of the Divine title.\n\n[1522] Heb. _dug_.\n\n[1523] _I knew how Thou art a God gracious._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVI\n\n _THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS\u2014THE PSALM_\n\n JONAH ii\n\n\nAt this point in the tale appears the Great Fish. _And Jehovah prepared\na great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish\nthree days and three nights._\n\nAfter the very natural story which we have followed, this verse\nobtrudes itself with a shock of unreality and grotesqueness. What an\nanticlimax! say some; what a clumsy intrusion! So it is if Jonah be\ntaken as an individual. But if we keep in mind that he stands here, not\nfor himself, but for his nation, the difficulty and the grotesqueness\ndisappear. It is Israel\u2019s ill-will to the heathen, Israel\u2019s refusal\nof her mission, Israel\u2019s embarkation on the stormy sea of the world\u2019s\npolitics, which we have had described as Jonah\u2019s. Upon her flight\nfrom God\u2019s will there followed her Exile, and from her Exile, which\nwas for a set period, she came back to her own land, a people still,\nand still God\u2019s servant to the heathen. How was the author to express\nthis national death and resurrection? In conformity with the popular\nlanguage of his time, he had described Israel\u2019s turning from God\u2019s will\nby her embarkation on a stormy sea, always the symbol of the prophets\nfor the tossing heathen world that was ready to engulf her; and now\nto express her exile and return he sought metaphors in the same rich\npoetry of the popular imagination.\n\nTo the Israelite who watched from his hills that stormy coast on which\nthe waves hardly ever cease to break in their impotent restlessness,\nthe sea was a symbol of arrogance and futile defiance to the will of\nGod. The popular mythology of the Semites had filled it with turbulent\nmonsters, snakes and dragons who wallowed like its own waves, helpless\nagainst the bounds set to them, or rose to wage war against the gods\nin heaven and the great lights which they had created; but a god slays\nthem and casts their carcases for meat and drink to the thirsty people\nof the desert.[1524] It is a symbol of the perpetual war between light\nand darkness; the dragons are the clouds, the slayer the sun. A\nvariant form, which approaches closely to that of Jonah\u2019s great fish,\nis still found in Palestine. In May 1891 I witnessed at Hasbeya, on the\nwestern skirts of Hermon, an eclipse of the moon. When the shadow began\nto creep across her disc, there rose from the village a hideous din of\ndrums, metal pots and planks of wood beaten together; guns were fired,\nand there was much shouting. I was told that this was done to terrify\nthe great fish which was swallowing the moon, and to make him disgorge\nher.\n\nNow these purely natural myths were applied by the prophets and poets\nof the Old Testament to the illustration, not only of Jehovah\u2019s\nsovereignty over the storm and the night, but of His conquest of the\nheathen powers who had enslaved His people.[1525] Isaiah had heard\nin the sea the confusion and rage of the peoples against the bulwark\nwhich Jehovah set around Israel;[1526] but it is chiefly from the\ntime of the Exile onward that the myths themselves, with their cruel\nmonsters and the prey of these, are applied to the great heathen\npowers and their captive, Israel. One prophet explicitly describes the\nExile of Israel as the swallowing of the nation by the monster, the\nBabylonian tyrant, whom God forces at last to disgorge its prey. Israel\nsays:[1527] _Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me[1528]\nand crushed me,[1528] ... he hath swallowed me up like the Dragon,\nfilling his belly, from my delights he hath cast me out_. But Jehovah\nreplies:[1529] _I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of\nhis mouth that which he hath swallowed.... My people, go ye out of the\nmidst of her._\n\nIt has been justly remarked by Canon Cheyne that this passage may be\nconsidered as the intervening link between the original form of the\nmyth and the application of it made in the story of Jonah.[1530] To\nthis the objection might be offered that in the story of Jonah the\n_great fish_ is not actually represented as the means of the prophet\u2019s\ntemporary destruction, like the monster in Jeremiah li., but rather as\nthe vessel of his deliverance.[1531] This is true, yet it only means\nthat our author has still further adapted the very plastic material\noffered him by this much transformed myth. But we do not depend for our\nproof upon the comparison of a single passage. Let the student of the\nBook of Jonah read carefully the many passages of the Old Testament, in\nwhich the sea or its monsters rage in vain against Jehovah, or are\nharnessed and led about by Him; or still more those passages in which\nHis conquest of these monsters is made to figure His conquest of the\nheathen powers,[1532]\u2014and the conclusion will appear irresistible that\nthe story of the _great fish_ and of Jonah the type of Israel is drawn\nfrom the same source. Such a solution of the problem has one great\nadvantage. It relieves us of the grotesqueness which attaches to the\nliteral conception of the story, and of the necessity of those painful\nefforts for accounting for a miracle which have distorted the\ncommon-sense and even the orthodoxy of so many commentators of the\nbook.[1533] We are dealing, let us remember, with poetry\u2014a poetry\ninspired by one of the most sublime truths of the Old Testament, but\nwhose figures are drawn from the legends and myths of the people to\nwhom it is addressed. To treat this as prose is not only to sin against\nthe common-sense which God has given us, but against the simple and\nobvious intention of the author. It is blindness both to reason and to\nScripture.\n\nThese views are confirmed by an examination of the Psalm or Prayer\nwhich is put into Jonah\u2019s mouth while he is yet in the fish. We have\nalready seen what grounds there are for believing that the Psalm\nbelongs to the author\u2019s own plan, and from the beginning appeared just\nwhere it does now.[1534] But we may also point out how, in consistence\nwith its context, this is a Psalm, not of an individual Israelite,\nbut of the nation as a whole. It is largely drawn from the national\nliturgy.[1535] It is full of cries which we know, though they are\nexpressed in the singular number, to have been used of the whole\npeople, or at least of that pious portion of them, who were Israel\nindeed. True that in the original portion of the Psalm, and by far its\nmost beautiful verses, we seem to have the description of a drowning\nman swept to the bottom of the sea. But even here, the colossal scenery\nand the magnificent hyperbole of the language suit not the experience\nof an individual, but the extremities of that vast gulf of exile into\nwhich a whole nation was plunged. It is a nation\u2019s carcase which rolls\nupon those infernal tides that swirl among the roots of mountains and\nbehind the barred gates of earth. Finally, vv. 9 and 10 are obviously\na contrast, not between the individual prophet and the heathen, but\nbetween the true Israel, who in exile preserve their loyalty to\nJehovah, and those Jews who, forsaking their _covenant-love_, lapse\nto idolatry. We find many parallels to this in exilic and post-exilic\nliterature.\n\n_And Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the belly of the fish, and\nsaid:\u2014_\n\n _I cried out of my anguish to Jehovah, and He answered me;\n From the belly of Inferno I sought help\u2014Thou heardest my voice.\n For Thou hadst[1536] cast me into the depth, to the heart\n of the seas, and the flood rolled around me;\n All Thy breakers and billows went over me.\n Then I said, I am hurled from Thy sight:\n How[1537] shall I ever again look towards Thy holy temple?\n Waters enwrapped me to the soul; the Deep rolled around me;\n The tangle was bound about my head.\n I was gone down to the roots of the hills;\n Earth _and_ her bars were behind me for ever.\n But Thou broughtest my life up from destruction,\n Jehovah my God!\n When my soul fainted upon me, I remembered Jehovah,\n And my prayer came in unto Thee, to Thy holy temple.\n They that observe the idols of vanity,\n They forsake their covenant-love.\n But to the sound of praise I will sacrifice to Thee;\n What I have vowed I will perform.\n Salvation is Jehovah\u2019s._\n\n_And Jehovah spake to the fish, and it threw up Jonah on the dry land._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1524] For the Babylonian myths see Sayce\u2019s Hibbert Lectures; George\nSmith\u2019s _Assyrian Discoveries_; and Gunkel, _Sch\u00f6pfung u. Chaos_.\n\n[1525] Passages in which this class of myths are taken in a physical\nsense are Job iii. 8, vii. 12, xxvi. 12, 13, etc., etc.; and passages\nin which it is applied politically are Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Jer. li.\n34, 44; Psalm lxxiv., etc. See Gunkel, _Sch\u00f6pfung u. Chaos_.\n\n[1526] Chap. xvii. 12-14.\n\n[1527] Jer. li. 34.\n\n[1528] Heb. margin, LXX. and Syr.; Heb. text _us_.\n\n[1529] Jer. li. 44, 45.\n\n[1530] Cheyne, _Theol. Rev._, XIV. See above, p. 503.\n\n[1531] See above, p. 511, on the Psalm of Jonah.\n\n[1532] Above, p. 525, n. 1525.\n\n[1533] It is very interesting to notice how many commentators (_e.g._\nPusey, and the English edition of Lange) who take the story in its\nindividual meaning, and therefore as miraculous, immediately try to\nminimise the miracle by quoting stories of great fishes who have\nswallowed men, and even men in armour, whole, and in one case at least\nhave vomited them up alive!\n\n[1534] See above, pp. 511 f.\n\n[1535] See above, p. 511, nn. 1500, 1501.\n\n[1536] The grammar, which usually expresses result, more literally\nruns, _And Thou didst cast me_; but after the preceding verse it must\nbe taken not as expressing consequence but cause.\n\n[1537] Read \u05d0\u05b5\u05d9\u05da\u05b0 for \u05d0\u05b7\u05da\u05b0, and with the LXX. take the sentence\ninterrogatively.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVII\n\n _THE REPENTANCE OF THE CITY_\n\n JONAH iii\n\n\nHaving learned, through suffering, his moral kinship with the heathen,\nand having offered his life for some of them, Jonah receives a second\ncommand to go to Niniveh. He obeys, but with his prejudice as strong\nas though it had never been humbled, nor met by Gentile nobleness.\nThe first part of his story appears to have no consequences in the\nsecond.[1538] But this is consistent with the writer\u2019s purpose to treat\nJonah as if he were Israel. For, upon their return from Exile, and in\nspite of all their new knowledge of themselves and the world, Israel\ncontinued to cherish their old grudge against the Gentiles.\n\n_And the word of Jehovah came to Jonah the second time, saying, Up, go\nto Niniveh, the great city, and call unto her with the call which I\nshall tell thee. And Jonah arose and went to Niniveh, as Jehovah said.\nNow Niniveh was a city great before God, three days\u2019 journey_ through\nand through.[1539] _And Jonah began by going through the city one day\u2019s\njourney, and he cried and said, Forty[1540] days more and Niniveh shall\nbe overturned_.\n\nOpposite to Mosul, the well-known emporium of trade on the right bank\nof the Upper Tigris, two high artificial mounds now lift themselves\nfrom the otherwise level plain. The more northerly takes the name of\nKujundschik, or \u201clittle lamb,\u201d after the Turkish village which couches\npleasantly upon its north-eastern slope. The other is called in the\npopular dialect Nebi Yunus, \u201cProphet Jonah,\u201d after a mosque dedicated\nto him, which used to be a Christian church; but the official name\nis Niniveh. These two mounds are bound to each other on the west by\na broad brick wall, which extends beyond them both, and is connected\nnorth and south by other walls, with a circumference in all of about\nnine English miles. The interval, including the mounds, was covered\nwith buildings, whose ruins still enable us to form some idea of\nwhat was for centuries the wonder of the world. Upon terraces and\nsubstructions of enormous breadth rose storied palaces, arsenals,\nbarracks, libraries and temples. A lavish water system spread in all\ndirections from canals with massive embankments and sluices. Gardens\nwere lifted into mid-air, filled with rich plants and rare and\nbeautiful animals. Alabaster, silver, gold and precious stones relieved\nthe dull masses of brick and flashed sunlight from every frieze and\nbattlement. The surrounding walls were so broad that chariots could\nroll abreast on them. The gates, and especially the river gates, were\nvery massive.[1541]\n\nAll this was Niniveh proper, whose glory the Hebrews envied and over\nwhose fall more than one of their prophets exult. But this was not the\nNiniveh to which our author saw Jonah come. Beyond the walls were great\nsuburbs,[1542] and beyond the suburbs other towns, league upon league\nof dwellings, so closely set upon the plain as to form one vast complex\nof population, which is known to Scripture as _The Great City_.[1543]\nTo judge from the ruins which still cover the ground,[1544] the\ncircumference must have been about sixty miles, or three days\u2019 journey.\nIt is these nameless leagues of common dwellings which roll before\nus in the story. None of those glories of Niniveh are mentioned, of\nwhich other prophets speak, but the only proofs offered to us of the\ncity\u2019s greatness are its extent and its population.[1545] Jonah is sent\nto three days, not of mighty buildings, but of homes and families, to\nthe Niniveh, not of kings and their glories, but of men, women and\nchildren, _besides much cattle_. The palaces and temples he may pass in\nan hour or two, but from sunrise to sunset he treads the dim drab mazes\nwhere the people dwell.\n\nWhen we open our hearts for heroic witness to the truth there rush upon\nthem glowing memories of Moses before Pharaoh, of Elijah before Ahab,\nof Stephen before the Sanhedrim, of Paul upon Areopagus, of Galileo\nbefore the Inquisition, of Luther at the Diet. But it takes a greater\nheroism to face the people than a king, to convert a nation than to\npersuade a senate. Princes and assemblies of the wise stimulate the\nimagination; they drive to bay all the nobler passions of a solitary\nman. But there is nothing to help the heart, and therefore its courage\nis all the greater, which bears witness before those endless masses, in\nmonotone of life and colour, that now paralyse the imagination like\nlong stretches of sand when the sea is out, and again terrify it like\nthe resistless rush of the flood beneath a hopeless evening sky.\n\nIt is, then, with an art most fitted to his high purpose that our\nauthor\u2014unlike all other prophets, whose aim was different\u2014presents\nto us, not the description of a great military power: king, nobles\nand armed battalions: but the vision of those monotonous millions. He\nstrips his country\u2019s foes of everything foreign, everything provocative\nof envy and hatred, and unfolds them to Israel only in their teeming\nhumanity.[1546]\n\nHis next step is still more grand. For this teeming humanity he claims\nthe universal human possibility of repentance\u2014that and nothing more.\n\nUnder every form and character of human life, beneath all needs and all\nhabits, deeper than despair and more native to man than sin itself,\nlies the power of the heart to turn. It was this and not hope that\nremained at the bottom of Pandora\u2019s Box when every other gift had fled.\nFor this is the indispensable secret of hope. It lies in every heart,\nneeding indeed some dream of Divine mercy, however far and vague, to\nrouse it; but when roused, neither ignorance of God, nor pride, nor\nlong obduracy of evil may withstand it. It takes command of the whole\nnature of a man, and speeds from heart to heart with a violence, that\nlike pain and death spares neither age nor rank nor degree of culture.\nThis primal human right is all our author claims for the men of\nNiniveh. He has been blamed for telling us an impossible thing, that a\nwhole city should be converted at the call of a single stranger; and\nothers have started up in his defence and quoted cases in which large\nOriental populations have actually been stirred by the preaching of an\nalien in race and religion; and then it has been replied, \u201cGranted the\npossibility, granted the fact in other cases, yet where in history have\nwe any trace of this alleged conversion of all Niniveh?\u201d and some\nscoff, \u201cHow could a Hebrew have made himself articulate in one day to\nthose Assyrian multitudes?\u201d\n\nHow long, O Lord, must Thy poetry suffer from those who can only treat\nit as prose? On whatever side they stand, sceptical or orthodox, they\nare equally pedants, quenchers of the spiritual, creators of unbelief.\n\nOur author, let us once for all understand, makes no attempt to record\nan historical conversion of this vast heathen city. For its men he\nclaims only the primary human possibility of repentance; expressing\nhimself not in this general abstract way, but as Orientals, to whom an\nillustration is ever a proof, love to have it done\u2014by story or parable.\nWith magnificent reserve he has not gone further; but only told\ninto the prejudiced faces of his people, that out there, beyond the\nCovenant, in the great world lying in darkness, there live, not beings\ncreated for ignorance and hostility to God, elect for destruction, but\nmen with consciences and hearts, able to turn at His Word and to hope\nin His Mercy\u2014that to the farthest ends of the world, and even on the\nhigh places of unrighteousness, Word and Mercy work just as they do\nwithin the Covenant.\n\nThe fashion in which the repentance of Niniveh is described is natural\nto the time of the writer. It is a national repentance, of course, and\nthough swelling upwards from the people, it is confirmed and organised\nby the authorities: for we are still in the Old Dispensation, when\nthe picture of a complete and thorough repentance could hardly be\notherwise conceived. And the beasts are made to share its observance,\nas in the Orient they always shared and still share in funeral pomp and\ntrappings.[1547] It may have been, in addition, a personal pleasure\nto our writer to record the part of the animals in the movement. See\nhow, later on, he tells us that for their sake also God had pity upon\nNiniveh.\n\n_And the men of Niniveh believed upon God, and cried a fast, and from\nthe greatest of them to the least of them they put on sackcloth. And\nword came to the king of Niniveh, and he rose off his throne, and cast\nhis mantle from upon him, and dressed in sackcloth and sat in the dust.\nAnd he sent criers to say in Niniveh:\u2014_\n\n_By Order of the King and his Nobles, thus:\u2014Man and Beast, Oxen and\nSheep, shall not taste anything, neither eat nor drink water. But let\nthem clothe themselves[1548] in sackcloth, both man and beast, and call\nupon God with power, and turn every man from his evil way and from\nevery wrong which they have in hand. Who knoweth but that God may[1549]\nrelent and turn from the fierceness of His wrath, that we perish\nnot?_[1550]\n\n_And God saw their doings, how they turned from their evil way; and God\nrelented of the evil which He said He would do to them, and did it\nnot._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1538] Only in iii. 1, _second time_, and in iv. 2 are there any\nreferences from the second to the first part of the book.\n\n[1539] The diameter rather than the circumference seems intended by the\nwriter, if we can judge by his sending the prophet _one day\u2019s journey\nthrough the city_. Some, however, take the circumference as meant, and\nthis agrees with the computation of sixty English miles as the girth of\nthe greater Niniveh described below.\n\n[1540] LXX. Codd. B, etc., read _three days_; other Codd. have the\n_forty_ of the Heb. text.\n\n[1541] For a more detailed description of Niniveh see above on the Book\nof Nahum, pp. 98 ff.\n\n[1542]\u200e \u05e8\u05d7\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea \u05e2\u05d9\u05e8, Gen. x. 11.\n\n[1543] Gen. x. 12, according to which the Great City included, besides\nNiniveh, at least Resen and Kelach.\n\n[1544] And taking the present Kujundschik, Nimrud, Khorsabad and\nBalawat as the four corners of the district.\n\n[1545] iii. 2, iv. 11.\n\n[1546] Compare the Book of Jonah, for instance, with the Book of Nahum.\n\n[1547] Cf. Herod. IX. 24; Joel i. 18; Virgil, _Eclogue_ V., _\u00c6neid_ XI.\n89 ff.; Plutarch, _Alex._ 72.\n\n[1548] LXX.: _and they did clothe themselves in sackcloth_, and so on.\n\n[1549] So LXX. Heb. text: _may turn and relent, and turn_.\n\n[1550] The alleged discrepancies in this account have been already\nnoticed. As the text stands the fast and mourning are proclaimed and\nactually begun before word reaches the king and his proclamation of\nfast and mourning goes forth. The discrepancies might be removed by\ntransferring the words in ver. 6, _and they cried a fast, and from the\ngreatest of them, to the least they clothed themselves in sackcloth_,\nto the end of ver. 8, with a \u05dc\u05d0\u05de\u05e8 or \u05d5\u05d9\u05d0\u05de\u05e8\u05d5 to introduce ver. 9. But,\nas said above (pp. 499, 510, n. 1499), it is more probable that the\ntext as it stands was original, and that the inconsistencies in the\norder of the narrative are due to its being a tale or parable.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXVIII\n\n _ISRAEL\u2019S JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH_\n\n JONAH iv\n\n\nHaving illustrated the truth, that the Gentiles are capable of\nrepentance unto life, the Book now describes the effect of their escape\nupon Jonah, and closes by revealing God\u2019s full heart upon the matter.\n\nJonah is very angry that Niniveh has been spared. Is this (as some say)\nbecause his own word has not been fulfilled? In Israel there was an\naccepted rule that a prophet should be judged by the issue of his\npredictions: _If thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word\nwhich Jehovah hath not spoken?\u2014when a prophet speaketh in the name of\nJehovah, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing\nwhich Jehovah hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken\npresumptuously, thou shalt have no reverence for him_.[1551] Was it\nthis that stung Jonah? Did he ask for death because men would say of\nhim that when he predicted Niniveh\u2019s overthrow he was false and had not\nGod\u2019s word? Of such fears there is no trace in the story. Jonah never\ndoubts that his word came from Jehovah, nor dreads that other men will\ndoubt. There is absolutely no hint of anxiety as to his professional\nreputation. But, on the contrary, Jonah says that from the first he had\nthe foreboding, grounded upon his knowledge of God\u2019s character, that\nNiniveh would be spared, and that it was from this issue he shrank and\nfled to go to Tarshish. In short he could not, either then or now,\nmaster his conviction that the heathen should be destroyed. His grief,\nthough foolish, is not selfish. He is angry, not at the baffling of his\nword, but at God\u2019s forbearance with the foes and tyrants of Israel.\n\nNow, as in all else, so in this, Jonah is the type of his people. If we\ncan judge from their literature after the Exile, they were not troubled\nby the nonfulfilment of prophecy, except as one item of what was the\nproblem of their faith\u2014the continued prosperity of the Gentiles.\nAnd this was not, what it appears to be in some Psalms, only an\nintellectual problem or an offence to their sense of justice. Nor could\nthey meet it always, as some of their prophets did, with a supreme\nintellectual scorn of the heathen, and in the proud confidence that\nthey themselves were the favourites of God. For the knowledge that God\nwas infinitely gracious haunted their pride; and from the very heart of\ntheir faith arose a jealous fear that He would show His grace to others\nthan themselves. To us it may be difficult to understand this temper.\nWe have not been trained to believe ourselves an elect people; nor\nhave we suffered at the hands of the heathen. Yet, at least, we have\ncontemporaries and fellow-Christians among whom we may find still alive\nmany of the feelings against which the Book of Jonah was written. Take\nthe Oriental Churches of to-day. Centuries of oppression have created\nin them an awful hatred of the infidel, beneath whose power they are\nhardly suffered to live. The barest justice calls for the overthrow of\ntheir oppressors. That these share a common humanity with themselves is\na sense they have nearly lost. For centuries they have had no spiritual\nintercourse with them; to try to convert a Mohammedan has been for\ntwelve hundred years a capital crime. It is not wonderful that Eastern\nChristians should have long lost power to believe in the conversion of\ninfidels, and to feel that anything is due but their destruction. The\npresent writer once asked a cultured and devout layman of the Greek\nChurch, Why then did God create so many Mohammedans? The answer came\nhot and fast: To fill up Hell! Analogous to this were the feelings of\nthe Jews towards the peoples who had conquered and oppressed them. But\nthe jealousy already alluded to aggravated these feelings to a rigour\nno Christian can ever share. What right had God to extend to their\noppressors His love for a people who alone had witnessed and suffered\nfor Him, to whom He had bound Himself by so many exclusive promises,\nwhom He had called His Bride, His Darling, His Only One? And yet the\nmore Israel dwelt upon that Love the more they were afraid of it. God\nhad been so gracious and so long-suffering to themselves that they\ncould not trust Him not to show these mercies to others. In which case,\nwhat was the use of their uniqueness and privilege? What worth was\ntheir living any more? Israel might as well perish.\n\nIt is this subtle story of Israel\u2019s jealousy of Jehovah, and Jehovah\u2019s\ngentle treatment of it, which we follow in the last chapter of the\nbook. The chapter starts from Jonah\u2019s confession of a fear of the\nresults of God\u2019s lovingkindness and from his persuasion that, as this\nspread to the heathen, the life of His servant spent in opposition to\nthe heathen was a worthless life; and the chapter closes with God\u2019s own\nvindication of His Love to His jealous prophet.\n\n_It was a great grief to Jonah, and he was angered; and he prayed\nto Jehovah and said: Ah now, Jehovah, while I was still upon mine\nown ground, at the time that I prepared to flee to Tarshish, was\nnot this my word, that I knew Thee to be a God gracious and tender,\nlong-suffering and plenteous in love, relenting of evil? And now,\nJehovah, take, I pray Thee, my life from me, for for me death is better\nthan life._\n\nIn this impatience of life as well as in some subsequent traits, the\nstory of Jonah reflects that of Elijah. But the difference between the\ntwo prophets was this, that while Elijah was very jealous _for_\nJehovah, Jonah was very jealous _of_ Him. Jonah could not bear to see\nthe love promised to Israel alone, and cherished by her, bestowed\nequally upon her heathen oppressors. And he behaved after the manner of\njealousy and of the heart that thinks itself insulted. He withdrew, and\nsulked in solitude, and would take no responsibility nor further\ninterest in his work. Such men are best treated by a caustic\ngentleness, a little humour, a little rallying, a leaving to nature,\nand a taking unawares in their own confessed prejudices. All these\u2014I\ndare to think even the humour\u2014are present in God\u2019s treatment of Jonah.\nThis is very natural and very beautiful. Twice the Divine Voice speaks\nwith a soft sarcasm: _Art thou very angry?_[1552] Then Jonah\u2019s\naffections, turned from man and God, are allowed their course with a\nbit of nature, the fresh and green companion of his solitude; and then\nwhen all his pity for this has been roused by its destruction, that\nvery pity is employed to awaken his sympathy with God\u2019s compassion for\nthe great city, and he is shown how he has denied to God the same\nnatural affection which he confesses to be so strong in himself. But\nwhy try further to expound so clear and obvious an argument?\n\n_But Jehovah said, Art thou_ so _very angry?_ Jonah would not\nanswer\u2014how lifelike is his silence at this point!\u2014_but went out from\nthe city and sat down before it,[1553] and made him there a booth and\ndwelt beneath it in the shade, till he should see what happened in the\ncity. And Jehovah God prepared a gourd,[1554] and it grew up above\nJonah to be a shadow over his head....[1555] And Jonah rejoiced in the\ngourd with a great joy. But as dawn came up the next day God prepared a\nworm, and _this_[1556] wounded the gourd, that it perished. And it came\nto pass, when the sun rose, that God prepared a dry east-wind,[1557]\nand the sun smote on Jonah\u2019s head, so that he was faint, and begged for\nhimself that he might die,[1558] saying, Better my dying than my\nliving! And God said unto Jonah, Art thou so very angry about the\ngourd? And he said, I am very angry\u2014even unto death! And Jehovah said:\nThou carest for a gourd for which thou hast not travailed, nor hast\nthou brought it up, a thing that came in a night and in a night has\nperished.[1559] And shall I not care for Niniveh, the Great City,[1560]\nin which there are more than twelve times ten thousand human beings who\nknow not their right hand from their left, besides much cattle?_\n\nGod has vindicated His love to the jealousy of those who thought that\nit was theirs alone. And we are left with this grand vague vision of\nthe immeasurable city, with its multitude of innocent children and\ncattle, and God\u2019s compassion brooding over all.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1551] Deut. xviii. 21, 22.\n\n[1552] The Hebrew may be translated either, first, _Doest thou well to\nbe angry?_ or second, _Art thou very angry?_ Our versions both prefer\nthe _first_, though they put the _second_ in the margin. The LXX. take\nthe _second_. That the second is the right one is not only proved by\nits greater suitableness, but by Jonah\u2019s answer to the question, _I am\nvery angry, yea, even unto death_.\n\n[1553] Heb. _the city_.\n\n[1554]\u200e \u05e7\u05b4\u05d9\u05e7\u05b8\u05d9\u05d5\u05df, the Egyptian kiki, the Ricinus or Palma Christi. See\nabove, p. 498, n. 1473.\n\n[1555] Heb. adds _to save him from his evil_, perhaps a gloss.\n\n[1556] Heb. _it_.\n\n[1557]\u200e \u05d7\u05b2\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d9\u05ea. The Targum implies a _quiet_, i.e. _sweltering_,\n_east wind_. Hitzig thinks that the name is derived from the season of\nploughing and some modern proverbs appear to bear this out: _an autumn\neast wind_. LXX. \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd Siegfried-Stade: _a cutting east wind_, as if\nfrom \u05d7\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1. Steiner emends to \u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05e1\u05d9\u05ea, as if from \u05d7\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05e1 = _the piercing_, a\npoetic name of the sun; and B\u00f6hme, _Z.A.T.W._, VII. 256, to \u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea,\nfrom \u05d7\u05e8\u05e8, _to glow_. K\u00f6hler (_Theol. Rev._, XVI., p. 143) compares \u05d7\u05b6\u05e8\u05b6\u05e9\u05c1,\n_dried clay_.\n\n[1558] Heb.: _begged his life, that he might die_.\n\n[1559] Heb.: _which was the son of a night, and son of a night has\nperished_.\n\n[1560] Gen. x. 12.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF PROPHETS\n\n\n HABAKKUK, Introduction, 115;\n Chaps. i.\u2014ii. 4, 129;\n ii. 5-20, 143;\n iii., 149.\n\n HAGGAI, Introduction, 225;\n Chap. i., 236;\n ii. 1-9, 241;\n ii. 10-19, 244;\n ii. 20-23, 250.\n\n JOEL, Introduction, 375;\n Chaps. i.\u2014ii. 17, 398;\n ii. 18-32, 418;\n iii., 431.\n\n JONAH, Introduction, 493;\n Chap. i., 514;\n ii., 523;\n iii., 529;\n iv., 536.\n\n \u201cMALACHI,\u201d Introduction, 331;\n Chap. i. 2-5, 349;\n i. 6-14, 352;\n ii. 1-9, 360;\n ii. 10-16, 363;\n ii. 17\u2014iii. 5, 365;\n iii. 6-12, 367;\n iii. 13\u2014iv. 2 (Eng.; iii. 13-21 Heb.), 369;\n iv. 3-5 (Eng.; iii. 22-24 Heb.), 371.\n\n NAHUM, Introduction, 77;\n Chap. i., 90;\n ii., iii., 96.\n\n OBADIAH, Introduction, 163;\n vv. 1-21, 173, 177.\n\n ZECHARIAH (i.\u2014viii.), Introduction, 255;\n Chap. i. 1-6, 267;\n i. 7-17, 283;\n i. 18-21 (Eng.; ii. 1-4 Heb.), 286;\n ii. 1-5 (Eng.; ii. 5-9 Heb.), 287;\n iii., 292;\n iv., 297;\n v. 1-4, 301;\n v. 5-11, 303;\n vi. 1-8, 305;\n vi. 9-15, 307;\n vii., 320;\n viii., 323.\n\n \u201cZECHARIAH\u201d (ix.\u2014xiv.), Introduction, 449;\n Chap. ix. 1-8, 463;\n ix. 9-12, 466;\n ix. 13-17, 467;\n x. 1, 2, 469;\n x. 3-12, 470;\n xi. 1-3, 473;\n xi. 4-17, 473;\n xii. 1-7, 478;\n xii. 8\u2014xiii. 6, 481;\n xiii. 7-9, 473, 477;\n xiv., 485.\n\n ZEPHANIAH, Introduction, 35;\n Chaps. i.\u2014ii. 3, 46;\n ii. 4-15, 61;\n iii. 1-13, 67;\n iii. 14-20, 67, 73.\n\n\n\n\n PRINTED BY\n HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.,\n LONDON AND AYLESBURY.","title":"The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2: Commonly Called the Minor","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":160979}